ABSTRACT
Concepts of participation and sustainability are so much contested and interpreted as to be almost meaningless without precise definition. Cities always have such places of marginality and difference, and they are often very creative and resourceful places essential to a city's continuing development and inextricable from its sustainability. Growth, both physical and economic, is usually seen as the positive objective of governments and of planning policies, and as essential to sustainability, A characteristic of the British government since 1979 has been to measure growth only by certain forms of economic activity. The long and difficult learning processes in the area, driven by desperate need, by threats of displacement, and by positive concepts of sustainable development which values the multiple skills of all residents, continues with new alliances and structures. The council has recently won significant central government investment through the Single Regeneration Budget.
