ABSTRACT
Significant regeneration projects in recent history show a strengthening of the relationship between real estate dynamics and the inclusion of cultural references. In Chapter 3 we take note of two urban case studies separated by two decades and the neoliberalisation of the UK economy, which reveal how the texture of regeneration has changed - both in the way it is framed politically and how its delivery mechanisms have been finessed: Covent Garden and Battersea Power Station developments.
Their stories are characterised by narratives building on the legitimising presence of history. If we assume that heritage is ‘made’ and not inherited (Graham and Howard, 2008), and that memory “works by reinvesting places with new accretion of significance” (Kearns and Philo, 1993), we understand the pivotal importance in observing cultural narratives. They reveal how the process of selection has been made, and who is the final beneficiary of a certain interpretation of heritage. Moreover, they show how the urban project should be considered not only as a final outcome, but also as a resource to the same policies that generated it.
