During the 1980s the governments of Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom (1979–1990) and Ronald Reagan in the United States (1981–1989) pursued parallel programmes of tax cuts, privatisation of state-owned assets and the rolling back of regulation. In the cities this took the form of instruments such as enterprise zones, with relaxed planning and tax breaks, and property-led urban development corporations that bypassed local authorities to drive regeneration. The London Docklands Development Corporation, set up in 1981, became the flagship example, redeveloping derelict docks into the Canary Wharf financial district. The approach favoured private investment over public planning.
It shifted urban policy from comprehensive public planning toward market-led, property-driven regeneration, a template exported well beyond Docklands that reshaped how cities financed and steered their redevelopment.