Leadership challenges in the inner city: planning for sustainable regeneration in Birmingham and Barcelona

Approaches to inner-city regeneration in Britain, Europe and North America have evolved since the 1980s to reflect greater priority on diversity of activities and more sustainable development. This has in turn posed new challenges for leadership in place-shaping and highlighted the need for different sets of skills, aptitudes and values than those which prevailed in the 1980s and 90s. This article examines how planners and policy-makers in Birmingham and Barcelona have tackled these challenges in the creation of new urban districts. It shows that while top-down approaches still prevail in both cities, leaders in Barcelona have been able to adapt more readily to the demands of a new era. In Birmingham, policymakers have struggled to break free of the more traditional approach that suited the city well in the 1980s but is less conducive to sustainable place-making challenges in the present day. This divergence of experience can be explained by several factors, most notably the institutional framework within which leaders operate and the prevailing planning culture rooted in the cities' pasts. The findings point to the need for this cultural influence to be taken into account in the forging of new leadership approaches in urban regeneration contexts.