This edited collection investigates the human dimension of urban renewal, using a range of case studies from Africa, Asia, Europe, India and North America, to explore how the conception and delivery of regeneration initiatives can strengthen or undermine local communities. Ultimately aiming to understand how urban residents can successfully influence or manage change in their own communities, contributing authors interrogate the complex relationships between policy, planning, economic development, governance systems, history and urban morphology. Alongside more conventional methods, analytical approaches include built form analysis, participant observation, photographic analysis and urban labs. Appealing to upper level undergraduate and masters' students, academics and others involved in urban renewal, the book offers a rich combination of theoretical insight and empirical analysis, contributing to literature on gentrification, the right to the city, and community participation in neighbourhood change.

The participants in the planning of an urban development project describe in original essays how the renewal scheme was formulated. City officials, community leaders, a team of planners, and faculty members of the University of Cincinnati worked together in an attempt to create a safe, attractive neighbourhood out of a decaying slum. Organized, applied research involving several disciplines; legally mandated citizen participation; a commitment to establishing a racially integrated neighbourhood: these are some of the elements that made the project unique.