The pursuit of regeneration and renewal has played an important role in the history and development of the world’s cities, and the theoretical and applied issues around these critical concepts are of increasing importance to governments and local populations, as well as to urban professionals and scholars. Particularly in postwar North America and Western Europe, this growing concern has often resulted from the decay and deterioration of cities associated with the decline in traditional industries and the associated loss of employment, and populations, to the suburbs and beyond.

This new title in the Routledge series, Critical Concepts in Urban Studies, meets the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of the explosion in research output on regeneration and renewal as a significant historical and contemporary urban process of economic, social, cultural, and political importance. Edited by a leading scholar, this Routledge Major Work brings together in four volumes the canonical and the best cutting-edge scholarship on the topic.

The collection is divided into three principal parts. Part 1 (‘Cities in Transition’) covers the wider social, economic, political, and urban geographical context for urban regeneration and renewal, and documents the nature of changing cities. These processes and changes are inextricably linked with urban regeneration and renewal initiatives, and an understanding of these transitions is essential to place Parts 2 and 3 in perspective. Part 2 (‘Responses to Urban Change from National Governments’) brings together the best overviews and critiques of urban policy initiatives implemented by central governments in developed countries during the postwar period. The materials gathered here span experiences and city examples from advanced economies across the world.

The final part (‘City Responses to Urban Change’) draws on the approaches taken by cities themselves in response to urban problems, particularly those designed to improve economic competitiveness and to combat social exclusion. Key research on the wide array of thematic approaches that have been followed is assembled in this part. Within the wider urban processes explored in Part 1, this part examines particular policy responses that have arisen in many cities, and considers a number of case-study cities from the UK, North America, continental Europe, and Australasia.

With a full index, together with a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editor, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context, Urban Regeneration and Renewal is an essential work of reference. It is destined to be valued by scholars, students, and researchers as a vital research resource.