ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to examine the relationship between processes of urban development and the availability of leisure facilities within the inner city. It relates the forces that structure land use in central areas of cities to the specific circumstances of parts of inner Leeds and Bradford, West Yorkshire. Evidence of the operation of urban processes in the inner districts so far examined is not reassuring, since development pressures show every sign of reducing still further the already narrow range of commercial leisure facilities. Leisure facilities within the inner city are thus subject to the joint pressures of urban development processes, which maintain relatively high rents and land values despite an atmosphere of cumulative decline, and a resident local population impoverished and disadvantaged. The chapter discusses the paradoxically high land values still maintained within disadvantaged areas, ensure that any redevelopment is directed towards commercially more successful, non-leisure ends, serving a market beyond that of the local population.
