Seeing urban regeneration through an institutional lens: toward a new contextualism

Abstract

One of the ‘tools’ of urban regeneration is discourse – that is, the social construction of new strategies for uplifting parts of the city. In this article, we take an institutionalist approach and contrast textualist urban development regimes from contextualist ones, building on recent theoretical advances in institutional contextualism. A review of the institutional literature underscores the utility of this lens in analysing the discourse and practice of urban regeneration. We demonstrate the contrast between text and context in practice and point to a new contextualism in urban planning and design. Drawing upon examples from Hong Kong, we discuss particular challenges, such as textual autopoiesis, for regenerative urban design.

Keywords:

• urban regeneration
• contextualism
• urban design

Notes

1. A portion of this paper was presented in a talk entitled ‘Discursive Tools of Redevelopment and the Problem of Planning for Imagined Communities’, given at the International Symposium on Urban Regeneration, University of Seoul, Korea, 13 August 2014.

2. We might note, too, that often, terms are used in different ways in different country contexts – e.g. some writers in the USA and UK use the term, urban regeneration, to refer to sustainable cities that reduce their ecological footprint through material recycling (e.g. Girardet, 2014; Reed & Eisenberg, 2003).