Mixed value urban development: Mechanisms for sustaining the livelihoods and social capital of the urban poor in core urban areas

There is a need for a more integrated and flexible approach to core area urban redevelopment at a time when pressures to maximise economic returns from inner city land threaten to disrupt the livelihoods and established social networks of many urban poor communities. This paper draws upon the experiences of established planning and partnership redevelopment strategies (i.e. land sharing, land redistribution/pooling, transferable development rights and incentive bonus schemes) and assesses the extent to which they enable poor communities to continue living close to inner city areas and the source of their livelihoods. Furthermore, drawing upon the findings of household survey’s from a recent piece of work conducted by the Max Lock Centre on inner city core areas, the paper aims to highlight some of the main concerns facing many low income communities in inner city areas. Introduction: the development and livelihoods context of core areas With rapidly expanding urban populations, many cities throughout the developing world are finding it difficult to accommodate the urban poor. Although this is not a new or unfamiliar problem increasing commercial competition for urban land means many low income households living in settlements close to city centres are under extreme pressure to either sell or relocate to cheaper locations, often remote from the source of their livelihoods. Historically, poor neighbourhoods in centrally located areas have been bulldozed and relocated to the outskirts of cities in order to make way for commercial development. While mass evictions are less evident these days, they still occur in many cities and the development pressures that drive them are often followed by some form of gentrification which makes it difficult for poor communities to live in central urban areas close to where they work. The large scale relocation of existing and often well established urban communities in this way is unsustainable as it leads to the disruption of existing networks that tie together communities within neighbourhoods and link neighbourhoods to nearby city districts through commercial, political and other contacts (ie. social capital). When households move to more peripheral locations they may be forced to travel long distances to their existing workplaces which even if affordable is likely to place a 1 The surveys form part of a recent research project conducted by the Max Lock Centre at the University of Westminster, which looked at development options for inner city core areas in developing countries. The project aims to provide both guidelines for urban design and frameworks for urban management and finance to facilitate the integrated and balanced development of commercial core areas of rapidly growing cities in the developing world. 2 which are themselves subject to commercial development pressure