"Sustainable Communities Do Not Come about by chance - they are something we must work to create." So writes Sir John Egan in his capacity as the government's adviser on new settlements. Exactly the same could be said for urban regeneration. Not only do sustainable communities and urban regeneration demand complex co-ordination to get right, but they absorb billions of pounds of investment. So what better reasons could there be for the government's current strategies of urban development and regeneration to be seriously reviewed? This need has now been answered by two in-depth reports published within a few days of each other. The first is Egan's official review, commissioned by the government, of its own strategy of sustainable development in the South-east. It is entitled Skills for Sustainable Communities. The second, entitled Towards More Sustainable Places, was commissioned by consultant Turner Townsend and the RICS Foundation, and that takes an insider's view of urban regeneration. By interviewing more than 30 professional practitioners in four large cities, it asks the people charged with delivering urban regeneration what they think are the strengths and weaknesses of the system.
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