Development cultures and urban regeneration

The importance of levering private finance and investment into urban regeneration is a central consideration of policy. Attention has focused on institutional investors' motives for holding regeneration investments and on how they might be encouraged to put more money into inner-city areas. The paper argues that, while helpful, the impact of such an approach upon urban regeneration will be limited. This is because, by definition, institutional investors are only interested in institutional property and buildings which do not conform to this frame of reference will not be of interest to them. However, other actors see things differently. Independent developers embrace the challenge presented by fringe locations, mixed uses and the local urban culture and aesthetic-and translate these characteristics into development values. Urban policy needs to address the contrasting ways in which the nature, construction and application of investors' strategic rationality intercept with local development conditions. In particular, greater emphasis should be given to encouraging independent, locally based forms of property investment and development.