Outline the ways Manchester has attempted to regenerate its CBD and inner city areas.

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Helen Rowley _                                                                Oct 2003

Outline the ways Manchester has attempted to regenerate its

 CBD and inner city areas.

The decline of industry in Manchester during the late twentieth century was the beginning of the regeneration initiatives in deprived areas. Strong centrifugal forces led to the decline of population in the city centre. Employment was low especially in inner city areas; figures dropped dramatically from160,000 in 1961 to 99,000 in 1991. The focus of great concern was on population decline and increasing poverty in inner city areas. Many initiatives were previously established by governments in order to renew these areas through economic, social and environmental strategies. These failed as there were disputes about the way the increased tax was benefiting the local area, other weaknesses contributed to this also. The increased poverty in inner-city areas due to high unemployment rates led to low quality of life for inhabitants where crime rates were increasing rapidly.

 Regeneration is the investment of capital and ideas into an area to revitalise and renew its economic, social and environmental condition. In recent years, the most common type of areas in Britain to be regenerated has been the inner city.  Key elements of regeneration are slum clearance and housing renewal, new industrial growth and development, improvements to transport systems and environmental improvements. To encourage private sector investment instead of that from local councils and central government sources.

There has been a wide range of approaches to regenerate the more deprived areas in Manchester. In the 1980’s economic regeneration was the priority, this was where deindustrialisation prevailed and high unemployment rates were high.  In the 1990’s there was and still is a more holistic approach, this is where the concern is with the whole of the problem rather than analysis of separate parts. There are many schemes of regeneration to improve different areas of deprivation such as The City Challenge Scheme, Single Regeneration Budget, Urban Development Corporations and Event Led Regeneration.

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An example of how the City Challenge Scheme has finally prevailed is in Hulme. Previous attempts in Hulme have proved inadequate for improvement. Comprehensive redevelopment, this is where a large number of new housing replaced the old. However the new tower blocks that were made in the 60’s had deteriorated soon after, increasing the need for redevelopment as population had dropped by half in the last ten years. This is where the City Challenge strategy came in.

Hulme is situated in southern, inner city Manchester and is notorious of having problems of multiple deprivation, inner city decline ...

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