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New Labour and the “Urban Renaissance”? agenda in the United-Kingdom. Pathway to sustainable reurbanisation or high-speed gentrification of British cities? This contribution aims to critically analyse the “Urban Renaissance”? agenda championed by the New Labour government in the UK since 1997. Although the “Urban Renaissance” discourse signals a new political interest in the inner city, it has been criticised by academics for its ambiguous impacts on urban communities, in particular in terms of gentrification. Is gentrification a policy objective, an unplanned sideeffect or a badly understood process in the Urban Renaissance agenda? In order to address this question, this article offers a critical reflection on the “Urban Renaissance”? agenda in terms of its content, its underpinning ideology and vision of urban space. The paper is based on a critical reading of the official documents forming the discursive framework of the “Urban Renaissance”? agenda. It draws from recent academic research on gentrification processes and urban policies in the UK — a body of literature which has scarcely been disseminated in France to date.