Regional Development Agencies and Physical Regeneration: Can RDAs actually deliver the Urban Renaissance?

This paper reports on the results of recent research examining the scope of current and future Regional Development Agency (RDA) activity to promote physical regeneration. It provides a detailed breakdown of RDA spending in terms of the funding of physical and economic regeneration, speculates upon the extent of RDAs’ commitment to physical regeneration and also highlights variations between RDAs in terms of plans, priorities and spending. Using this evidence base, the paper considers whether RDAs are moving towards a more economic driven agenda that prioritises projects that contribute towards economic development performance targets, but which risk marginalising projects that contribute towards the physical aspects of the ‘urban renaissance’. It concludes that under the weight of a plethora of performance indicators, RDAs will be inclined to support physical development that will generate employment and contribute to economic growth – but that holistic regeneration activity may be neglected, impairing delivery of the urban renaissance. Hence, it is argued that RDAs should avoid focusing on single use business developments (linked to job creation) to the detriment of holistic urban regeneration and that RDAs will need to take a more proactive role in encouraging mixed-use development.