Rethinking town centre economies: Beyond the ‘place or people’ binary

The ‘place or people?’ dilemma is a recurring refrain in local economic development. The contested question of the future of Britain’s high streets and town centres both transcends this binary and locates it in the broader question of what kind of economic development is required to revitalise struggling places and who benefits from it. Drawing on research underpinning the recently published How to Save Our Town Centres, this article argues that questions of equitable economic development cannot be separated from the question of land ownership, access and management. It concludes by arguing that rather than couching the debate about town centre economies in terms of ‘resilience’, questions of transition to alternative futures could provide a sharper focus for academic and policy discussion.