LP Sarah Longlands

Learning Point 96

Local Economic Development: the role of place and diversity

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INTRODUCTION

“Resilience is the capacity of a system to deal with negative change without collapsing, to withstand shocks, and to rebuild itself and learn”; places which go ‘boing!’

WHAT ARE LEARNING POINTS? Learning points share what people have learned from their experience in regeneration - from people working or talking together, or from research into issues and evaluation of what is happening. Learning points can help people and organisations to improve their practice through identifying what works and what doesn’t.

The views described in learning points do not mean that the Scottish Centre for Regeneration (SCR) or the Scottish Government necessarily support them. They simply reflect what has been debated and what those involved in the event considered useful learning and lessons from their perspectives.

WHAT IS THIS LEARNING POINT ABOUT? This Learning Point captures the key points from the presentation given at the Design Skills Symposium in Stirling on 27 September 2011 by Sarah Longlands. Sarah is a Research Fellow for the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) where she was formerly Director of Policy. She has worked on a diverse range of national and international projects including research on place resilience, community engagement, employment, planning and economic development.

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1. Economic development in the UK needs a new story Inequality within and between places in the UK has grown – and the growth achieved by regeneration in many places has melted away in the recession – there was no resilience.

The processes of place-making and economic development have not always been aligned.

Successful place-making and sustainable places come from the integration of economic, spatial and transport planning, demonstrated for example by Curitiba in Brazil.

The benefits of regeneration have not been shared equally. We need to re-examine the respective roles of the different players in regeneration, as for instance in the development of the favelas in Sao Paolo - where the planning and the infrastructure has been put in by the inhabitants, and the state realised that it needed to respect this initiative, however unconventional, and work with rather than against the grain of this dynamic.

Region

Whole settlement

Block / Street

Image: The favelas in Sao Paulo, Brazil - an extreme example of people placemaking.

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District

Plot

2. What makes places resilient?

Image: The Resilience Place Model (McInroy & Longlands 2010).

CLES, who have been researching resilient places for 5 years, define resilience as: ‘The capacity of a system to deal with negative change without collapsing, to withstand shocks, and to rebuild itself and learn.’

The local economy consists of 3 parts:– 1. The Commercial Economy 2. The Public Economy 3. Social Economy These all are all subject to the external influences of – • The role of health and well-being • Local identity and culture • The need to work within environmental limits • The role of Government All three aspects of the local economy need to be valued, vibrant and to work in conjunction with each other to make a resilient place. This analysis aligns with the development process model in the 2011 Scottish Government publication Designing Better Places.

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3. Delivering resilient places There are 5 key aspects to the delivery of resilient places:1. The need for effective working relationships between the 3 economies 2. The need for leadership – place-delivery needs vision and imagination, not rules and regulation 3. The public sector has an important role – for instance identifying opportunities, organising partners, providing resources, de-risking projects, and maintaining a link to the democratic system 4. We should make better use of the resources that we have – place-making has an economic value 5. Place policy and economic policy are connected to planning policy

Key message of presentation To deliver lasting regeneration and places which are more resilient to change, economic, transport and spatial planning need to be aligned under a common agenda of place-making, in which the public sector should take the lead.

Image: Sarah cited Curitiba, Brazil as an example of successful integration between economic, spatial and transport planning ‘A city designed for people not planners’.

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Scottish Government Architecture & Place Division This document is published by the Scottish Government. If you would like to find out more about this publication, please contact Geraldine McAteer in the Architecture and Place Division of the Scottish Government.

Scottish Government APD. Area 2 J South, Victoria Quay, Edinburgh. EH6 6QQ T: 0131 244 0548 E: geraldine.mcateer@scotland.gsi.gov.uk www.scotland.gov.uk The views expressed in this Learning Point are not necessarily shared by the Scottish Government.

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