ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the experience of an experiment in partnership in urban regeneration in a disadvantaged inner city neighbourhood in Newcastle, UK. It aims to build links between the world of residents in neighbourhoods where daily life is often harsh and tense and that of business life in the formal economy. The chapter illustrates a particular approach to alliance-building and partnership in cities and urban regions which has developed in recent years in Britain to address and guide the processes of socio-spatial transformation experienced in the context of a post-Fordist economy and a post-welfarist state. 'Partnership' was in principle attractive as a way at least of getting close to government, for both business, often in search of good access to grants, and residents of areas dependent on government for housing and welfare. The Cruddas Park Initiative was an experiment in three-way partnership which has a considerable influence on the government's City Challenge programme, started in 1991.
