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From enterprise to empowerment: the evolution of an Anglo‐American approach to strategic urban economic regeneration
Author(s) -
Lavin Marilyn,
Whysall Paul
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
strategic change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.527
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 1099-1697
pISSN - 1086-1718
DOI - 10.1002/jsc.681
Subject(s) - empowerment , government (linguistics) , regeneration (biology) , policy development , political science , economic growth , political economy , economics , public administration , linguistics , philosophy , biology , microbiology and biotechnology
This paper traces the development and evolution of a policy instrument designed to regenerate inner urban areas suffering the effects of long‐term economic decline. The origins of the Enterprise Zone concept are examined from radical town planning thought to government policy under Margaret Thatcher in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s, and its subsequent reappearance in American urban policy through the 1980s and 1990s, culminating in the concept of Empowerment Zones in the mid‐1990s. Through this time, shifts occur in the nature and application of the policies and critics are heard on both sides of the Atlantic, as explained here. It is suggested the American experience benefited from its later occurrence in a more favourable economic climate. More recently there is evidence of British policy shifting closer to the evolved form of policy, as has emerged in the United States.Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.