ABSTRACT
On 16 November 2000 the Deputy Prime Minister launched a new Urban White Paper, entitled Our Towns and Cities: The Future (DETR 2000b). This document laid down a vast array of policy initiatives dealing with the social, economic and environmental dimensions of urban life. It was billed as presenting a new ‘joined-up’ and long-term approach to the coordination of financial/fiscal measures, policy agendas (including planning), and the functioning of various government and non-governmental agencies, all seeking to promote urban ‘renewal’ and arrest long-term decline and under-investment. Such a document, the first White Paper to exclusively address urban policy issues for some twentythree years, was constructed upon other works, notably the findings of the Urban Task Force, chaired by Lord Rogers (Urban Task Force 1999), and research reports into the State of English Cities and Living in Urban England: Attitudes and Aspirations (DETR 2000c). The White Paper set itself a number of ambitious targets, with detailed monitoring by a newly formed cabinet committee and Urban Summit in 2002. The following year the government launched its amalgamation of policy initiatives in the form of the Sustainable Communities Plan. This would have a wide-ranging impact on urban policy, combining £38 billion worth of investment with significant housing growth (in the South East). The oft-repeated mantra of this strategy was ‘to create communities and not housing estates’. A government appraisal of this strategy, after three years, reported success measured against a whole basket of indicators, albeit an independent review in 2007 by the Sustainable Development Commission raised concern that too much emphasis was placed on the delivery of housing to the exclusion of other issues, notably sustainability and a community aspect. In 2006, a second State of English Cities report was published, together with the creation of a database that captured much information on various indicators, policies and spatial patterns relevant to cities and urban areas. Since the millennium the urban areas of England, in particular, had been the subject of White Papers, Green Papers and a plethora of legislation on housing, planning, regional government and local government.
