Contracts versus competitive bidding: rationalizing urban policy programmes in England and France.

In recent years both Britain and France have initiated major reforms of the organization of urban policy which have followed the introduction of new mechanisms for the allocation of resources to urban regeneration schemes. In the case of City Challenge, local partnerships were invited to engage in a competitive bidding exercise while the Contrat de Ville was based on a process of negotiation between the state and the different tiers of local government. The perceived success of these approaches led them to become central features of new national policies. Against the background of specific political and administrative traditions of the two countries, the article compares the rationale for each approach, the developments leading up to their introduction, the form and content of the programmes, and the mechanisms by which they were prepared and implemented. The underlying differences in philosophy are outlined through a series of comparative themes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]