Birmingham: Strategy and Partnership in the West Midlands

Abstract

The research in Birmingham was carried out between 1996 and 1998.The first part of the chapter deals with regional policies and networks and shows the political interrelationships between central, regional, and local public agencies and the private sector. The contingent context in Birmingham differs to that in Pittsburgh, and it has produced partnerships that have a different quality reflecting the strong public sector involvement at the regional and local levels. Central government has intervened to maintain order in the economic development and urban regeneration domain and to rationalise partnerships through the establishment of new English Regional Development Agencies. The new political agenda under the Labour government is one of achieving competitiveness increasingly by linking regional and local economic development policies and organisations. This maintains the dynamic of change in regional governance and leads to a stream of policy pronouncements and organisational and strategic changes, but it still accompanies government attempts to order and rationalise several otherwise fragmented policy concerns.