ABSTRACT
The involvement of communities in driving forward the regeneration of their area has become an increasingly important component of urban regeneration under successive governments. This has emerged in a context of moves towards more entrepreneurial governance in which cities are keen to have the contribution, participation and approval of local communities, and to sell strategies to communities for reasons of legitimacy (see Chapter 8 ). The beginning of the story of community involvement in public policy corresponds with the emergence of a distinct urban policy in the 1960s when a series of high pro le area-based social initiatives was introduced to tackle the problems in what were seen as ‘deprived’ communities. These initiatives, the key of which were examined in Chapter 2 , included Education Priority Areas, Housing Action Areas, General Improvement Areas, Community Development Projects, Inner Area Studies, the Comprehensive Community Programme and the Urban Programme, which directed smaller amounts of money into a greater number of areas (see Hill 2000; Taylor 2003).
