ABSTRACT
This chapter evaluates key policies espousing the values of entrepreneurial regeneration in the 1980s. Consistent with the rolling back of the carpet of the state and the rise of market-led, entrepreneurial approaches to urban regeneration, a top-down rather than bottom-up approach was pursued by central government. One of the key Thatcherite inner-city urban policies was the Enterprise Zone policy. A number of positive aspects have been recognised from various evaluations, which, in theory, could act as transferable lessons for the new wave of Enterprise Zones and can inform future urban regeneration. Bristol Urban Development Corporation (UDC) represented an example of a UDC that exhibited the ethos of 1980s-style urban regeneration and demonstrated many of the controversial aspects of the entrepreneurial, market-based approach. An evaluation of urban policy at the end of the 1980s revealed a number of problems facing urban regeneration in the context of ongoing economic, social and racial tensions in many inner cities.
