An analysis of the City Challenge decision-making process : The Dearne Valley Partnership and Sheffield.

This study aims to explore the decision-making processes affecting urban change. It uses the City Challenge initiative to help illuminate the changing nature of Urban Policy in Britain and explores the decision-making process in some depth. City Challenge is an urban regeneration initiative introduced in 1991 by the Department of the Environment to improve selected areas of social, economic and environmental deprivation. It is an empirical study based upon thirty four face-to-face interviews with key actors in two case study areas in South Yorkshire - Sheffield and the Dearne Valley. Initially the study contextualises the City Challenge initiative within British Urban Policy. The thesis draws upon three themes that emerge from an examination of the processes of decision-making in the urban environment Firstly aspects of partnerships are considered applying a series of partnership models to the City Challenge decision-making process. Secondly relations between central and local government and the changing role of local government are explored using a series of appropriate models. Finally two American theories, growth coalition theory and regime theory, are applied to the City Challenge decision-making process to explore public/private alliances. The study concludes with some observations about the research findings and suggestions for further study.