LOCAL-POLITICS, NEW AGENDAS AND STRATEGIES FOR CHANGE IN ENGLISH HISTORIC CITIES

This article introduces and discusses some of the implications of the effects of the dual processes of economic and state restructuring on h istoric cities in England, The article focuses on the politics of deve lopment which are emerging in historic cities in response to structura l changes in the local, regional and national economy, and the move to reconstitute English democratically elected local government into a m ore widely constituted system of local governance, There is a wide lit erature on the heritage industry and conservation of historic cities, but there is little which examines the political economy of these plac es and the extent to which this shapes the development agendas and str ategies being produced, The article begins to chart how economic and p olitical restructuring in England impacts on historic cities, and focu ses on how provincial English historic cities are responding to a rang e of competing and often contradictory economic and political pressure s, The emergence of sustainable development policy frameworks which se ek to reconcile the potentially incompatible requirements of growth, c onservation and environmental sustainability in historic cities are se en as key sites of political contestation. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.