ABSTRACT
The chapter opens with a discussion of inadequate housing: the starting point of urban policy in the nineteenth century, and the major concern of policy until at least the end of the 1960s. The focus then moved from physical conditions to the social aspects of housing and, later, to areas of social need. A further shift took place in the late 1970s, when economic issues were seen as being the key to urban regeneration. By the mid-1980s this had become the conventional wisdom, with an accent on large-scale property development undertaken in partnership with the private sector. By the early 1990s the value of these large projects was increasingly questioned. The past decade has seen attempts to create a more coordinated and consistent set of programmes, a greater emphasis on partnership, and some recognition of the need to invest in people as well as places.
