ABSTRACT
As stated at the outset of this book, there appears to be an institutional turn taking place throughout the advanced economies. At the heart of this turn is the advocacy of self-help. Wherever one looks, a 'disciplined' authoritarian approach which sought to socially engineer populations by doing things to them is being replaced by an approach founded upon an as yet ill-defined principle of 'self-discipline' in which people are being enabled to do things for themselves. Our aim in this book has been to explore how this approach could be applied in the field of revitalising deprived urban neighbourhoods. At present, it remains unclear to many involved in urban regeneration and beyond whether a self-help approach should be adopted and if it is employed, the form that it would take. Here, therefore, our objective has been to bring some clarity to the situation by outlining the rationales for using such an approach and exploring what it would mean in policy terms if such an approach were to be adopted towards the revitalisation of deprived urban neighbourhoods.
