TALK | Saturday Morning Planning School: Regeneration

Regeneration in London    

Dr Paul Watt will examine urban regeneration in London in two main parts.

The first part will provide an overview of what is meant by ‘urban regeneration’ and it will include a brief discussion of various kinds of regeneration programmes in London. The second part will examine what is referred to as ‘sports-led regeneration’ and in so doing will provide an in-depth analysis of the 2012 London Olympic Games.

This analysis is based on original research undertaken in East London over several years, much of which has focussed on disadvantaged youth. The discussion of the 2012 Games will consider the main official aims of ‘legacy’ and ‘convergence’. It will also examine the housing-related aspects of the 2012 Games regeneration. It will question how far a sustainable and inclusive Olympics’ legacy has resulted in terms of housing in relation to issues such as affordable/social housing provision, homelessness and the new East Village development.

Dr. Paul Watt is Reader in Urban Studies at the Department of Geography, Birkbeck, University of London. He has published widely on urban regeneration, social rental housing, the London housing crisis, gentrification, suburbanization, and the London 2012 Olympic Games. Paul is co-author of Understanding Social Inequality (Sage, 2007), co-editor of Mobilities and Neighbourhood Belonging in Cities and Suburbs (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), co-editor of London 2012 and the Post-Olympics City: A Hollow Legacy? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), and co-editor of Social Housing and Urban Renewal: A Cross-National Perspective (Emerald, 2017). Paul is on the Editorial Board of City, and is Board Member of the Research Committee on Sociology of Urban and Regional Development (RC21), International Sociological Association.

Run in association with the Built Environment Trust.