The meaning of place and state‐led gentrification in Birmingham’s Eastside

Abstract

Despite Birmingham’s claim to constitute ‘England’s second city’, it has arguably been overlooked in much recent academic research – perhaps because of a tendency to regard Manchester as the paradigmatic English example of the emerging post‐industrial city‐region. Contributors to CITY have gone some way to redressing this imbalance – with Frank Webster’s paper in vol 5 no 1 and Kevin Ward’s paper in vol 7 no 2 underlining the wider issues raised by the adoption of ‘urban entrepreneurialism’ in Birmingham. This paper, by Libby Porter and Austin Barber, takes forward such concerns through a case study of the ongoing regeneration of an individual district of the city: Birmingham Eastside. Using the stories of two pubs, whose fortunes are permanently re‐shaped by state‐led development initiatives, the paper develops a critical reflection on academic and policy debates relating to gentrification and the restructuring of central districts of large cities. In particular, the authors highlight how current thinking about the regeneration of inner city districts marginalizes the socio‐cultural meaning of place and the human networks that animate city places. They argue that this constrains planning possibilities and imaginations for the area’s future. The paper’s concluding call for urban analysts and planners alike to go beyond the economic when examining the processes and effects of urban change resonates with much work previously published in CITY. In particular, Porter and Barber’s analysis echoes Frank Webster’s assertion in vol 5 no 1 that, whatever else it may have achieved, regeneration in Birmingham appears to have resulted directly in a destruction of community.