Conceptualising Sustainability in UK Urban Regeneration: a Discursive Formation

Despite the wide usage and popular appeal of the concept of sustainability in UK policy, it does not appear to have challenged the status quo in urban regeneration because policy is not leading in its conceptualisation and therefore implementation. This paper investigates how sustainability has been conceptualised in a case-based research study of the regeneration of Eastside in Birmingham, UK, through policy and other documents, and finds that conceptualisations of sustainability are fundamentally limited. The conceptualisation of sustainability operating within urban regeneration schemes should powerfully shape how they make manifest (or do not) the principles of sustainable development. Documents guide, but people implement regeneration— and the disparate conceptualisations of stakeholders demonstrate even less coherence than policy. The actions towards achieving sustainability have become a policy ‘fix’ in Eastside: a necessary feature of urban policy discourse that is limited to solutions within market-based constraints.

尽管可持续性概念在英国政策中被广泛使用且颇具吸引力，但它似乎并未对城市更新的现状构成挑战，因为政策在其概念化以及实施方面并未起到引领作用。本文通过对英国伯明翰东区更新的案例研究，借助政策及其他文件，探讨了可持续性是如何被概念化的，并发现可持续性的概念化存在根本性的局限。在城市更新计划中运作的可持续性概念化应该有力地塑造它们如何体现（或不体现）可持续发展的原则。文件起到指导作用，但人来实施更新——而利益相关者不同的概念化甚至比政策更缺乏一致性。在东区，实现可持续性的行动已成为一种政策“补救措施”：城市政策话语的一个必要特征，仅限于在基于市场的约束条件下的解决方案。