IN-PERSON Lisbon Livable Cities. Section A

Abstract

Public health is an essential policy ingredient for regenerating and sustaining urbanised areas to meet the diverse needs of existing and future residents. Employment is also a social determinant of health necessary to ensure healthy, cohesive, and resilient communities. The benefits of closer strategic ties between regional/local economic partnerships and health and social care, the third sector, and communities are clear, and their future visions are strikingly similar. This can potentially allow for new forms of collaborative and democratic governance, and the social determinants of health provide a framework for orienting strategic planning toward healthy, sustainable environments. This qualitative study explored local governance in Sandwell, in the West Midlands County of England, and how the Black Country Local Enterprise Partnership (a regional business-led partnership between the statutory and private sectors) and Sandwell Health and Wellbeing Board (a local statutory social care and health partnership) operated and interacted with the third sector. Data was collected through in-depth interviews with 20 professionals, including public health, local government, and local enterprise partnership professionals. Thematic analysis was used to identify common themes in the data. Four main themes emerged: (1) state steering (2) primacy of economic growth (3) power and discretion in policy framing (4) actor inclusion and exclusion. The results highlight the complexity of local governance in defining and responding to wicked problems, mediating between economic growth and development, and creating healthy places. These insights have implications for developing strategies to create effective forms of regional/local governance.