Towards Inclusive Urban Futures: The Integrative Role of Local Development Agencies in Urban Regeneration

Towards Inclusive Urban Futures sets out how Local Development Agencies (LDAs) can integrate planning, finance and governance to deliver urban regeneration and reduce spatial inequality. It explains why inequality increasingly takes spatial forms and argues for holistic, place-based renewal that aligns social, economic and environmental aims. 

The paper clarifies the family of agencies involved—Local Economic Development Agencies, Urban Development Agencies and Redevelopment Agencies—and distils what makes LDAs effective: deep local economic insight, a business-minded yet public-interest approach, the ability to broker between government, communities, firms and academia, leverage private investment, and sustain a long-term vision.  It links urban regeneration to local economic development, outlining tools such as land management, adaptive reuse, targeted zoning and site preparation to crowd-in investment and jobs.

Six international case studies illustrate these ideas in practice—Gothenburg’s Norra Älvstranden, Barcelona’s 22@, Turin’s Porta Palazzo (The Gate), Santiago’s repopulation programme, Singapore’s waterfront transformation and the Mandela Bay Development Agency—showing how institutional design, phased placemaking and public-private collaboration can catalyse inclusive growth.

Written for policymakers, urban planners and practitioners, this publication offers a concise framework and lessons to design context-specific policies, plans and catalytic projects that make regeneration a lever for equity and resilience.