Welfare Reform on the Web (November 2006): Community regeneration and development - UK

Accentuate the positive in building community networks

S. Kelly

Community Living, vol.20, no.1, 2006, p.20-21

Report of a conference on asset-based community development and its implications for the integration of people with learning difficulties. This approach looks for the assets which the wider community already possesses and builds on them, rather than focusing on negative aspects or deficits.

“The poor in a loomp” is still bad but could get better

B. Lund

Political Quarterly, vol.77, 2006, p.265-272

Tony Blair’s strategy for reducing area-based deprivation was based on improving social and human capital in disadvantaged districts so that people living in them could, with government support, raise their social and economic standing by their own efforts. Few attempts were made to change neighbourhood characteristics to generate more balanced communities. However the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, in alliance with Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, has revived interest in stimulating the growth of balanced communities through housing market renewal initiatives and the replacement of obsolete housing with modern sustainable accommodation.