Welfare Reform on the Web (March 2010): Community regeneration and development - UK

The future for local authorities: is it John Lewis or EasyCouncil?

A. Stratton

The Guardian, Feb. 18th 2010, p.14-15

Article looks at Lambeth's plans to give residents more say in the running of the borough. Ideas include a community land trust, community-run schools and sports facilities. The approach of Barnet Council is also detailed, as a contrast.

Mixed communities: a new approach to spatially concentrated poverty in England

R. Lupton and C. Fuller

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, vol. 33, 2009, p. 1014-1028

This article examines the adoption by the New Labour government of a mixed communities approach to the renewal of disadvantaged neighbourhoods in England. It argues that, while there are continuities with previous policy, the new approach represents a more neoliberal turn in three respects: its identification of concentrated poverty as a problem; its faith in market-led regeneration; and its alignment with a new urban policy agenda in which cities are gentrified and remodelled as sites for capital accumulation through entrepreneurial local governance. The paper then draws on evidence from the early evaluation of the mixed community demonstration projects to explore how the new policy approach is playing out at the local level.