ABSTRACT
This nal chapter in Section II of the textbook brings the historical evolution of urban policy up to date. The year 2010 marked another dividing line in central government urban policy in the UK. The early period following the end of the Second World War until 1979 was characterised initially by town and country planning policies, and the development of new housing, and latterly by area-based social and community initiatives (see Chapter 2 ). The property-led, entrepreneurial era of urban regeneration can be traced from 1979 until 1991, following which an era of competitive bidding for urban funds emerged during the 1990s. In 1997, the Conservatives were removed from power after 18 years, heralding a new approach to economic and social policy in the UK. However, most of the area-based programmes of New Labour had come to a natural end by the late 2000s (Matthews 2012), and the property and consumption-led urban renaissance was stalled by the onset of the global nancial crisis in 2007 (CLG 2009a). The formation of the Coalition government of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in May 2010, following a General Election with no party having an overall majority in parliament, led to another break point in the periodisation of urban policy in the UK.
