The attempt to reinvigorate a run-down urban area, through strategies including the redevelopment of brownfield sites, rehabilitation of the existing building stock, and enhancement of public spaces and infrastructure (see Temelová (2007) Geografiska B 89, 2). In the slums of the developed world, substandard housing is broken up by urban regeneration projects, and low-income households, ‘unable to gain access to the shrinking stock of public rental housing find themselves increasingly restricted to pockets of low quality housing in the private rental sector’ (Randolph and Holloway (2005) Urb. Policy & Res. 23). See Forster (2006) Geog. Res. 44, 2. Hall (2007) Geog. Compass 1, 6 notes that public art ‘has become wedded’ to urban regeneration in developed world cities, and Bell (2007) PHG 31, 1 finds that hospitality has become central to regeneration ‘as cities increasingly rebrand themselves as pleasure’. Podagrosi and Vojnovic (2008) Urb. Geog. 29, 4 report that, in Houston’s urban revival, physical upgrading has been accompanied by the displacement of the community’s traditional population and the destruction of an historic neighbourhood.