ABSTRACT
Business Week, the New Yorker, America and City Limits have devoted lengthy articles to what is described as a veritable ‘urban renaissance’ sweeping American cities thanks to collaborative community improvement initiatives by development-oriented faith-based organisations (FBOs). These articles correspond with current debates taking place in the US and UK that suggest that FBOs are better placed to address urban poverty and to facilitate grassroots regeneration than the state. Accordingly, religious organisations in stressed inner-city neighbourhoods have achieved a certain level of stability and presence that make them important sites for organising residents, particularly in non-Anglo, immigrantrich communities. They facilitate a gateway into the daily lives of many residents, in ways tamer than the radical activism of the 1960s and 1970s but no less important in the current mobilisation for liveable wages through welfare-to-work contracts, food security and affordable housing programmes, and economic development initiatives.
