The housing and neighbourhood impacts of knowledge-based economic development following industrial closure

Alex Burfitt and Ed Ferrari

Policy Studies, 2008, vol. 29, issue 3, 293-304

Abstract: Economic development initiatives following large-scale industrial closures often seek to regenerate the local economy through investment in technology and knowledge-intensive activities. The resulting changes in the make-up of the local workforce are in turn likely to generate new forms of demand for housing; demand that will not necessarily be met by the residential offer of the neighbourhoods worst affected by the initial closure. This paper explores these processes through a study of the proposals for a science park as a component of the programme to redevelop the Longbridge site in Birmingham in the UK, following the closure of the Rover automotive plant in 2005. The paper examines the capacity of local workers to take up the anticipated high-technology jobs; the likely configuration of an incoming workforce; and the fit between the housing requirements of these new workers and the residential offer of neighbourhoods in the Longbridge area. It concludes that there is likely to be a poor match between the housing and residential characteristics of neighbourhoods most closely associated with the plant closure and the requirements of an incoming high-tech workforce. This in turn raises a policy dilemma. On the one hand there is a necessity to secure economic diversification for the local economy as a whole, whilst on the other is the requirement to address the specific needs of the discrete neighbourhoods most affected by the closure and whose quality of place offer is often furthest from the requirements of the incoming workforce. A number of policy implications are discussed, drawing on the experience of recent housing and regeneration policy.

Date: 2008
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01442870802159954 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:cposxx:v:29:y:2008:i:3:p:293-304

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/cpos20

DOI: 10.1080/01442870802159954

Access Statistics for this article

Policy Studies is currently edited by Toby James

More articles in Policy Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().