Making places better

Collaboration and place-shaping

About the Theme

CLES has a long-standing interest in place and the most effective scale that economic development and regeneration is undertaken at. There are a number of constituent elements to an effective and functioning place including, amongst others: cohesive communities; readily available employment opportunity; resilience in terms of relationships between commercial, public and social economies; and a sustainable environment. The challenge for practitioners is marrying these components together and utilising the right mechanisms, funds and levers to do so. This research theme is about understanding the economic development and regeneration activities that are required for place-shaping and the tools local authorities and partners can utilise to enable this to happen.

Relevant Research

CLES has recently undertaken or is undertaking a number of pieces of research around making places better including:

Big productive society: making deprived areas strong again

This research, undertaken with Furness Enterprises, explored the variety of policy approaches and ways of working which are needed in deprived areas. It particularly assesses the importance of highly focused and localised approaches to business support in deprived areas.

Planning new communities

For the second year running CLES is involved in international research around economic development through the Norfolk Trust. This year we are exploring how communities are planned in South America, Scandinavia and the Far East. We are planning on transferring the findings to research around place-shaping in a UK context.

Where next for ethnic diversity policy-making at the local level?

This cross-national research project compared two local authorities’ responses to increased ethnic diversity: Manchester and Copenhagen. Undertaken in a climate of public sector cuts, the publication reflects on the future for diversity policy and recommends that tackling inequality should be at the root of this area of policy in order to make better places. 

Future Activities

Making Places Better is the core theme of our activities with New Start and is also the theme of our 2011 CLES Summit. We are also particularly interested in undertaking future research activities as part of this theme around:

• The future links between planning and economic development;
• The links between cohesion and place;
• The role of different organisations in shaping and stewarding place.

If you are interested in contributing towards our research activities on Making Places Better please contact Sarah Longlands, Director of Policy.