ABSTRACT
This Chapter describes the Grainger Town initiative in Newcastle upon Tyne. It looks at how 'new' governance forms have emerged, what they respond to, and what they intend to deliver. The chapter discusses a conceptual framework for investigating institutional capacity building. It explains interested in the capacity of stakeholders to mobilise within a locality and focuses on action programmes aimed at improving the qualities of a locale or place. The chapter examines the issues involved in assessing 'institutional capacity' and the processes of building such capacity. It does this through examining an urban regeneration initiative in Northeast England, in order to explore ways in which these concepts can be operationalised and their qualities evaluated. The Grainger Town Partnership was set up in the mid-1990s to regenerate the economy and the physical fabric of the heart of Newcastle city centre. A broad-based literature on social movements provides the terms for evaluating the stakeholders' 'capacity' to mobilise knowledge and relational resources.
