The role of regeneration policies on the economic sustainability of property market: a case study of Manchester

The role of planning policies in the property market, particularly in regeneration, has been recognised as to shape, regulate and stimulate the market (Adams et al, 2010 & 2015; Jones, 2014). These scholars pointed out the lack of market indicators to evaluate the outcomes of planning and regeneration policies, which shows that the need of regeneration policies to engage with property market still remains neglected and there was little discussion on whether urban regeneration policies encouraged sustainable property markets as important economic institutions. This paper intends to adapt a conceptual framework of market sustainability by employing three key concepts of market maturity, resilience and competitiveness to examine the impact of urban regeneration policies on the property investment market in the UK as an evaluation indicator for economic sustainability by utilizing a holistic and long-term approach.The research method for this paper comprises two elements: firstly, the case study methodology to look at the formulation of the "Manchester Model" from the 1970s to the present time by studying written documents including the archived planning documents published by Manchester City Council, newspapers as well as academic papers; and secondly, undertaking semi-structured interviews to obtain insights on the interplay of the state-market relations through urban regeneration policies. The findings show that affirmative comments made by the interviewees indicated some positive impact of regeneration policies to make the property investment market more sustainable by strengthening its market maturity, the level of resilience and city competitiveness with an emphasis on economic growth and the increase of property value over the past fifty years. This "desirable" outcome mainly resulted from strong leadership of Manchester City Council, political stability and an appealing city image for investment and businesses. Moreover, the comments of the interviewees pointed out that the essential driving force to deliver "successful" urban regeneration in Manchester has been the "vision for a sustainable future" partly by creating sub-property markets in different zones of the city centre based on its strategic master plan. However, there are some doubts on elite leadership and uneven distribution of city success.