ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the use of housing as a driver of wider urban regeneration objectives in the United Kingdom, focusing on the central city as a place that has experienced the most striking transformation. In theoretical terms, much of the research on residential change and related urban regeneration has focused on gentrification. The experience of urban places can often be one of rapid change and as a result there has arisen a very powerful set of social myths concerning the stability of the countryside in relation to the dynamism of the city. The urban idyll is exemplified by the development of the Walt Disney Corporation-backed town of Celebration near the company's theme park in Orlando. The urban renaissance as reflected by new city centre housing development is largely divorced from surrounding areas and communities, which should perhaps become the focus of urban regeneration beyond the city centre.
