ABSTRACT
Since the introduction of the Urban Aid Programme in 1968 and the Community Development Project in 1969 by the Wilson government, there has been a plethora of studies on urban policy. Some were commissioned by the relevant administrative departments of the government, while others were research projects supported by research councils and academic institutions. Some of these studies could be classified as evaluation studies, while others were analyses of specific issues, some of which served as contributions to the theoretical debates. To analyse the development of evaluation studies in urban policy in Britain between 1968 and 1997, it would be a formidable task to review all of these studies. The analysis here will focus on a selection of evaluation studies conducted between 1968 and 1997. The selected studies either covered new initiatives introduced by the government, such as the Community Development Project in the late 1960s and City Challenge in the 1990s, or new attempts by the government to evaluate existing policy, such as the Urban Programme and the employment initiatives in the 1980s. The selection of the studies to be analysed was based on two criteria.
