Vision making and values in urban regeneration

Abstract

This paper explores how ideas of value are put to work in the context of town centre regeneration. Taking a grounded theory approach, it presents a narrative account of the first post-war British New Town centre to be comprehensively renewed. More than twenty years in the making, Bracknell’s regeneration failed when commercial goals (transactional values) dominated. We show how the Council’s place leadership helped establish a diverse set of principle-based values that public and private project team actors subscribed to and which also generated transactional value. Vision-making processes helped harness these values and transform the project from a property (re)development to a regeneration that sought to create a culturally self-confident place. Our paper contributes to theories of (re)development and value by exploring the role value(s) play(s) in making regeneration distinctive.