ABSTRACT
In a rapidly changing and uncertain world driven by globalisation and neoliberalism, the problems, threats and challenges regarding regeneration geographies appear to be very complicated and intricate. Under the complex and uncertain circumstances, how can urban planning confront ‘new’ issues such as sustainable cities and communities? How can planning practice successfully deal with the continuously emerging obstacles, challenges and conflicts in cities? How do power relations, governmentality and conflicting interests increase complexities and uncertainties? How can community needs, heritage and governance help address these complexities and uncertainties? The relational approach presents the claim that there is a need to construct a relational understanding of time, space and cities in order to develop sophisticated planning actions for places in a contemporary globalising world. Hence, the relational perspective can play a critical role, first in understanding the complexities of urban problems and issues related to conservation, regeneration and communities, and second in finding more equitable and sustainable solutions to these problems. This chapter, raising the key questions of this book, describes the sustainability problems of cities and regeneration spaces, and briefly introduces the relational approach to urban regeneration spaces, the research method and the structure of the book.
