ABSTRACT

The extent of deprivation on many of Britain’s social housing estates and innercity areas has attracted unprecedented levels of government attention since the early 1990s. Driving the concern is the fear of deep social fissures and something like American ghettos taking root in the UK. At the same time, accumulating research has shown that the spatial concentration of poverty in specific urban areas affects every aspect of those residents’ lives and is itself the product of many inter-related factors. New concepts such as social networks, ‘neighbourhood effects’, social capital, and social exclusion have been advanced to explain its impact on the social fabric of poor communities. In the wake of this newer understanding, regeneration initiatives have expanded dramatically in scope within a relatively short period. Yet, despite a decade and more of various initiatives, widespread poverty and social disadvantage still pervades many urban districts of the UK, including those that have been the beneficiary of regeneration programmes (Berthoud 2001).