Nowadays, in biggest cities process of reurbanization is becoming a common procees. Usually it happens due to noticeable efforts of governments, which fighting with city center’s decay and deprivation, redeveloped many of its areas. Developers, landlords and local governors are reinvesting in inner-city properties and redeveloping them for new inhabitants.
Good example showing huge effort, may be London Docklands, which are placed to the east of the centre of London near river Thames. Their regeneration, introduced by Margaret Thatcher’s government began in 1980. Main idea was to replace working-class population with a middle-class. Government created an enterprise zone, where buisness were free from property taxes and benefited other profits such as simplified planning and capital allowances. This initiatives made investing in that zone more attractive and soon Dockland areas were transformed into mixture of residential, commercial and light industry areas. The biggest project was creating a Canary Wharf, which is one of the biggest business and shopping centers in London and probably in the world. It contains of United Kingdom’s three tallest buildings and another skyscrapers are built. Due to this efforts, population of London Docklands has more than doubled. Transport have been improved significantly and crime level have fallen. London Docklands redevelopment was also the factor, which led to beginning of renovation of Greenwich and Deptford.
Location in inner city usually attract people, who are tired with long lasting commuting. Due to increasing number of private cars, traffic in all biggest cities in the world is increasing much faster than development of infrastructure. That’s why middle and higher-class population decide to live closer to their job places, which usually is placed in all kind of offices in city centers. “White-collars” are replacing “blue collars” as cities due to deindustrialization. Most of factories are now placed out of city or in its suburbs. Post-industrial building very often are modernized and used again. This happened in Łódź, where old fabric was transformed into huge shopping center. Sometimes they are also transformed into loft apartments, which are large open spaced apartments, which are very popular and fashionable nowadays. The other thing that discouraged people of living in inner city was lack of open and green space. Today
In the past one of the main arguments for leaving city was high crime level. Nowadays with increasment in police effectiveness, which occurred due to development of monitoring and equipment investement, it fell down to acceptable level is no more higher than in other parts of city.
