London (Re)generation AD

Regeneration is a term which is in danger of becoming over-used, and even debased. Like sustainability, which is now defined so widely and used so liberally that it is often meaningless, regeneration needs defining in order for it to be properly understood and meaningful. Regeneration is too easily confused with property development, or construction, or investment, or the creation of jobs. It is true that regeneration might well incorporate all these things, but it will also embrace matters such as sense of place, collective memory and culture, as well as introducing the potential for a place to survive into the long term. Regeneration is, therefore, about economics, society and viability, rather than just headline numbers and construction jobs. It means changing the fortunes of a place and its inhabitants not just temporarily; it provides a momentum which should eventually prove self-sustaining.

Further, this issue of AD argues that there is a subtle difference between regeneration and generation. Some regeneration is so complete that every building, street and inhabitant is removed – a parcel of land is sealed off, scraped clean and effectively returned to year zero. This might not be regeneration at all, only generation, a new beginning. True regeneration will embrace a certain continuity and the notion of change emerging organically. This involves working with the site rather than against it; and perhaps leaving room for the unknown, rather than planning for a future which might never happen.

In 2012, regeneration in the capital can be regarded as having run its course. Without public funding or stewardship the positive urban change that has been a feature of London for the last couple of decades is set to become a thing of the past. London 2012 and the regeneration of East London can be viewed as no more than a legacy from another era. An era in which the over-flowing public coffers could deliver a public project at a metropolitan scale. When we are talking about regeneration in the current context, are we in danger of confusing it with commercial investment? A mere tick-box term that enables developers to secure planning. As there is a shift from a US model of urbanism in London to a more global one, influenced by investors from the Middle East, Far East, Russia and Australia, how can we feasibly be expecting foreign companies to have a remit that is truly locally proactive? At a local level without funding, the Big Society ideals of the Tory government are set to remain ideals. As we move further away from the commercial centre to the struggling high streets of Greater London and the impoverished public spaces of the outer suburbs, the limits of the forces of regeneration become ever more apparent.