ABSTRACT
The breadth of public intervention embraced by the term ‘urban policies’ denies any simple summary: indeed, the enduring feature of urban policy has been the endless experimentation with new and often disconnected initiatives. What is consistent is the fragmentation of effort, lack of a strategy, weak involvement of local communities, the marginal impacts (in contrast to mainstream public spending and private investment) and bias to property development and economic development. The criticisms have not been ignored. Since the early 1990s, there has been a welcome increase in the influence of local government and local communities, though spending is still relatively low and the baffling range of ad-hoc initiatives remains. The evaluation of urban policies that underpins these critical comments is taken up at the end of the chapter. Here, two preliminary points need to be made.
