ABSTRACT
Increasingly in the 1990s the interrelated problems of structural unemployment and ever-deepening spatial and social inequalities have emerged to varying degrees across the member states of the European Union (EU). As a result many more individuals, households, and indeed entire communities, have become ‘detached’ or ‘excluded’ from the formal world of work and have become dependent upon the state and/or the informal economy to maintain a minimum level of existence. 1
