South Hampshire metropolitan area

South Hampshire is a term used mainly to refer to the metropolitan area formed by the cities of Portsmouth and Southampton and their suburbs and commuter towns, in southern Hampshire, England. The area had population of around 1 million based on the 2001 census, and estimated population of over 1.5 million in 2013.

The area is sometimes referred to as Solent City but the term is controversial.

The Solent Local Enterprise Partnership, a collaboration between local authorities and businesses set up in 2011 by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, has a population of over 1.3m (2011). On 12 November 2013 the government announced the second wave of City Deals, with a successful joint bid of Southampton and Portsmouth providing £953 million of investment into the Solent LEP.

Harold Wilson's Labour government commissioned town planner Colin Buchanan in 1965 to study the region. He found a region of growing economic importance, in desperate need of proper planning to avoid unplanned sprawl, and suggested the construction of a modernist urban area between Southampton and Portsmouth. However this was resisted by local authorities who occupied the proposed development sites, and Buchanan's plans were never put into effect.

Instead, as a result of high-tech industry and services, the area grew largely without overall planning to become perhaps the most densely populated region of the UK. In the late 20th century mass manufacturing of ordinary commodities declined leaving several town and city neighbourhoods impoverished and suffering unemployment, however by the early 21st century high income and retirement properties came to dominate some neighbourhoods, particularly close to universities, and many suburbs and exurbs. Centrally planned building programmes included large estates, carefully connected by new road networks, of commercial and residential use by Hampshire County Council's architects, led by Colin Stansfield Smith. Otherwise development has tended to be a case-by-case basis for retail parks, business parks and housing.

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