ABSTRACT
Birmingham is Britain's second largest city with a population of just under one million and as such dominates the West Midlands' region. Birmingham has long sought to diversify its economic base as a consequence of its manufacturing decline and has followed what Loftman and Nevin term the prestige model. The report to the Planning Committee on the Tym recommendations endorsed the approach considering the main advantages over the discretionary regime were its flexibility and the short designation period. The City Council's Planning Committee considered the recommendations for the several tier development strategy on the 21st April 1988. The lesson from the Birmingham zone in terms of the choice of the area is that there is a need to go beyond the physical suitability criterion of the government and include a purpose' based criterion. The Saltiey zone reveals some important insights into the implementation process and displays the value of both 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' views.
