Introduction

Urban regeneration has had an increased public profile within the United Kingdom policy agenda since the late 1990s and is of considerable contemporary public interest and debate. Urban regeneration is a significant component of wider ‘urban policy’, which is not exclusively concerned with ‘regeneration’. Urban regeneration is an activity rooted in practice, and there is a high degree of similarity between theory and practice in urban regeneration. Urban areas and regeneration are of importance from an empirical or statistical as well as a normative or value perspective. Intervention in urban areas can be traced back to the late nineteenth century, when the idea of regulating capitalist industrial cities emerged. The migration of jobs to suburban and rural locations and overseas occurred due to the changing nature and requirements of manufacturing industries in the post-Fordist era. This chapter also presents an overview on the key concepts discussed in this book.