FORMATION OF URBAN REVITALIZATION POLICY IN GREAT BRITAIN AND FRANCE

Abstract

The article summarizes the experience of developing urban revitalization policy in Great Britain and France. It has been defined that this process was accompanied by adopting relevant legislation and support programs, and also by establishing specialized institutions. However, there is no unified approach to the formation of urban revitalization policy, which largely depends on the structure of public power in each state. The author has outlined the distinctive characteristics of Great Britain, with a decentralization model of implementing revitalization, and France, where the state policy of urban development is historically carried out on the basis of centralization. The key role of the public and local self-government bodies in designing the model of urban revitalization based on the «bottom up» principle has been substantiated. The emphasis is put on the establishment of local partnerships for this purpose in the United Kingdom and the implementation of urban contracts in France. At the same time, the active involvement of the private sector representatives as well as their financial resources in the implementation of relevant projects is an essential feature of urban revitalization. The article examines the evolution of urban revitalization tools in the studied countries, which demonstrates a gradual change in their focus: from housing issues, encouraging the development of entrepreneurship, enhancing employment, improving the quality and accessibility of public services in degraded urban areas to the concept of sustainable urban development. The author has formulated the proposals concerning the formation of public policy of urban revitalization in Ukraine, which relate to the necessity of assigning the responsibility for the formation and implementing state urban policy to the central executive body of Ukraine; the state-level development of a program document that will regulate the state urban policy, including the revitalization of degraded areas; defining the basic principles of drafting, carrying out, and estimating the revitalization in a separate regulatory legal act; providing for the implementation of pilot projects for urban revitalization on a competitive basis at the expense of the state budget, etc.