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The Song has Ended but the Melody Lingers

This paper assesses the prospects for the Regional Development Agency (RDA) initiative, in light of the experience of Britain's Urban Development Corporation (UDC) programme. It explores the contrasts between the two initiatives and considers the prospects for the RDA programme. The paper argues that RDAs pose only limited constitutional implications, but should be more accurately considered as another managerial innovation — reflecting the Blairite preoccupation with “joined-up government” — in the search for more effective delivery mechanisms for sub-national economic development policy. It concludes by arguing that RDAs, like UDCs before them, represent a new hub of power to which locally accountable policy makers may prove to be marginal.