Review Urban affairs annual reviews 37. Leadership and urban regeneration: cities in North America

Over the past thirty years, politicians, administrators, and academics on both sides of the Atlantic have debated the future of cities, and whether they could, or should, be 'saved'. One side of the debate (see The President's Commission for a National Agenda for the 80's) argued that it was impossible or unwise to resist the logic of the global market which was driving the process of change. The other side pointed to unrestrained urban decline as a form of "Social Darwinism... with pernicious consequences to individuals and social classes" (Bluestone and Harrison, 1982). Inevitably, the debate involved local power: were the cities helpless pawns of international finance or could they direct their own destinies? Leadership and Urban Regeneration: Cities in North America and Europe makes useful contributions to both questions. Its twelve case studies make clear that the larger debate has been overtaken by events. It is now less a question of whether cities should or could be 'saved ' than how they can best adapt to on-going restructuring in the world economy. As to the question of local power, the cases assert that most cities are (within limits) in a position to mediate and direct their own futures. Local leadership, they say, matters; cities can be transformed from 'accidental ' to 'intentional'