Master plans and urban change: the case of Sheffield city centre

This paper critically examines the character, development and implementation of master plans as vehicles of urban change. The case of Sheffield’s city centre master planning is used to analyze how the city was reimagined from the early 1990s to the mid-2010s, and how the economic, cultural, social and political dimensions of urban regeneration were addressed. The paper argues that, in comparison to the post-war, welfare-state master plans, the master plans of the neoliberal period had a narrower spatial and thematic focus, linking place qualities to economic considerations, to be delivered through real estate investment. As such, social considerations were marginalized and, when a major economic crisis occurred, the new generation master plans’ lack of flexibility and vulnerability to economic fluctuations became apparent, much the same as their predecessors. This shows how master plans can be effective instruments for mobilizing investment and coordinating development around a selective spatial vision in periods of economic growth, but their utility is severely curtailed in economic downturns, when their coordinative potential is much diminished. They run the risk of becoming top-down technical devices to coordinate speculative real estate investment, without durable connections to the local economic and social capacities and needs.