A Level Revision Notes: Regeneration - The Need: Why is Regeneration Needed

Lived Experience, Places And Engagement:

Lived Experience: What it is like for people to have grown up or moved to a certain area.
Engagement: How involved and active people are within an area, local community or processes such as studying, volunteering, working etc.
Lived experience is different for people depending on their age, ethnicity, gender, length of residence there (e.g. students, locals, immigrants) and level of wealth/deprivation.

Attitudes, Engagement And Attachment To Places:

In most areas there is a huge variety of attitudes due to the demographic variation in the area
University students tend to have the most tolerant attitudes, and be very engaged in the local area with studies, working in part-time jobs, and for example being engaged politically, socially and with volunteering or local activities
Elderly pensioner/retired single men or single immigrants who cannot speak English well are the most isolated (least engaged) in general
However, longer term residents with housing in the area have the greatest attachment to a place and know more people, and so their attitudes might be more Bolton-focused, compared to students, temporary economic migrants, and some recent immigrants who have more of a globalised interest

The Need For Regeneration:

Areas with low-quality ‘lived experience’ ideally need regenerating to improve the quality of lives, education, services, and create an upward spiral
Areas with low engagement need regenerating to get the communities to participate and improve the area e.g. more people involved in work, community actions, volunteering etc.
Areas where residents and locals feel less ‘attached’ to the place also need improving so people feel prouder and connected to the area, and this in turn creates more benefits e.g. they look after the environment better
Regeneration in these areas will help reduce conflicts, deprivation, and get more people in the community being involved e.g. reducing unemployment, segregation, poverty, tensions etc.
For example, new students attracted to University will work locally, bring in skills, spend money and be active in the community

Regenerating Due To Community Conflict:

In many UK inner city areas there are diaspora (immigrants from other countries e.g. Poland, Bangladesh, Caribbean, Kenya etc).
Often these nationalities are former UK ‘colonies’ from the British Empire period, or part of the EU trade bloc
Racism and ethnic tensions might result due to factors such as a lack of understanding and education, lack of tolerance and ‘immigrants are to blame’ mindsets, and other problems such as language barriers
There are increases in ‘hate crime’ attacks when certain groups e.g. Muslims are targeted by some people in response for example to ISIS terrorist attacks elsewhere
Council and Police have worked hard to reduce a rise in knife crime attacks several years ago (although there were different reasons for these attacks)
The biggest problem in central areas, as with any inner city area, is unemployment
This can lead to the spiral of decline for individuals/families, or even whole community areas
The lack of engagement, reduced education and segregation that can result from the poverty that unemployment can lead to, mean that often these areas have the lowest tolerance, highest hate crime, and more community tensions.

Graphs:

In the North , there are more Indian ethnic minorities than the average number in England and Wales.
Most of these ethnic minorities are in places
Deprivation is also high in these places
The need to engage was high in the 60s and 70s as seen by turnout at elections but then it decreased going at its lowest in 2001. Now it is at a steady increase
In most places, turnout is around 75% but around Greater London there are areas where the turnout is around 55%

Priorities To Be Dealt With When Regenerating: