Urban renaissance: developing great towns & cities

Our Regional Economic Strategy identifies ‘great places’ as central to the prosperity of Yorkshire & Humber. Urban renaissance, in turn, provides a major contribution to the creation and sustaining of great places. Therefore, urban renaissance has significant direct and indirect impacts on the region’s economy.

This page tells you about our Urban Renaissance policy. To find out about the support we're delivering, please refer to our our urban areas pages.

The urban context

Our towns and cities are the major economic contributors to the region, containing almost 80% of the population and producing 85% of the economic output. Even though we’re a largely rural region, Yorkshire & Humber contains 4 of the UK’s 10 largest urban areas.

The legacy of history

Industrialisation in our urban centres led to expansion, but de-industrialisation later led to decline. This particularly affected textiles in West Yorkshire, coal in South Yorkshire, and employment (but not production) within the steel industry in South Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire.

The decline of many of our town and city centres was accompanied by social and physical degeneration, worsened by urban sprawl, including the emergence of out-of-town shopping. Our urban cores became places more likely to hinder, rather than promote, economic growth. The sheer scale of the problem, and a lack of resources, condemned to failure previous approaches of quick-fix and piecemeal interventions.

The situation today

Supported by economic interventions, people in our region are finding new ways to live and work. As traditional industries have contracted, new types of industry have sprung up,  and knowledge-based sectors have come to the fore.

Making places ‘great'

Yorkshire Forward wants to help create places where people want to live, work and invest—seizing opportunities, fixing what’s broken, and building on what’s already there. Our Urban Renaissance programme provides a new way to overcome the challenges. We have a detailed understanding of the issues, and we're promoting the development of knowledge, expertise, skills and best practice.

What is a ‘great place'?

It's virtually impossible to define what makes a place 'great' - but the following are a range of likely characteristics:

• Originality and great architecture
• Creativity, culture, knowledge and learning
• Permeable public spaces, public buildings and public life
• Quality and accessible green spaces
• High-quality, well-connected infrastructure
• Engaged and thriving communities with a sense of belonging
• Strong, ambitious leadership and governance
• Civic pride and positive identity
• Strong, growing businesses and flexible local economies
• Accessible business support structures
• Environmental consciousness and sensitivity
• Equality, fairness and diversity—reflecting all ages, races and abilities.

Why should towns and cities be made better?

• They serve as an attraction for people, businesses and visitors. They become places where people want to visit, live, work and invest
• They offer better lifestyles. They’re more likely to attract people who have more choices in life, with higher levels of income, education and skills
• They attract new, knowledge-based sectors, such as the creative industries
• The process of ‘place-making’ helps to overcome social exclusion, empowering local people and raising their levels of aspiration and ambition.

How are we doing this?

We have introduced 4 tactics:

• We’re ‘thinking places’—building the region’s understanding of ‘great places’, as well as the rationale and economics to support our plans
• We’re ‘designing places’—embedding and supporting great architecture and design across the region, including urban and landscape design
• We’re ‘making places’—via interventions such as site assembly and project funding
• We’re ‘learning and growing places’—disseminating skills as well as an understanding of what the development and sustaining of great places means, including elements such as planning.

Where are we focusing our activities?

We target our interventions on places where there’s an opportunity for economic improvement through place-shaping (ensuring that we don’t duplicate or displace the activities of others). Place-making is a long-term process, and our work within the existing Renaissance Towns will continue. However, the future will provide new opportunities to assess, identify and prioritise where place-making interventions should be focused. So while it seems apparent that we’ll continue to focus activity on under-performing urban centres, we’ll also consider how best we to identify and seize opportunities elsewhere.

Who are we working with?

Urban renaissance and place-shaping must be a strategic, collaborative process, involving people and partners including Team Yorkshire Forward, Team Yorkshire & Humber, more devolved responsibility to local authorities, and beyond.