The post below first appeared in Geography Directions Geographers’ interest in high streets has ebbed and flowed over the years. The 1980s saw a flurry of interest as traditional town centres were reshaped by out-of-town or edge-of-town shopping centres designed to be accessed by car. More recent scholarship has continued to frame high streets and town centres as shopping […]
Tag: regeneration
Community-based businesses and organisations can play a vital part in repurposing ailing high streets. But it is not a quick fix, and it demands a rethink of what creates value in town and city centres. A new report by the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research finds that high streets present new opportunities for community […]
Twenty years ago today the first issue of New Start magazine was published, with a mission described as ‘bringing together the partners in community renewal’. I and two colleagues set it up and recruited a team of writers, advertising and production staff to fill what we saw as both an evidence and a commercial gap: […]
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The peculiar persistence of place
If you live in Barnsley, I was once told, you can be as rude about it as you like and nobody will bat an eyelid. But if you don’t and you suggest it’s anything less than God’s holiday home when the Almighty fancies a break, heaven help you. For Barnsley, read anywhere with a strong […]
Julian Dobson 