ABSTRACT
The chapter outlines ideas about ethnic and social segregation in urban context. It identifies the project of ethnic assimilation via residential integration as a distinctive strand in societies emerging from conflict and crucially in the context of Ireland, where multiculturalism is spatially expressed, especially in poor neighbourhoods. The chapter explores the emerging global concern for social exclusion and how has reached mainstream urban policy debates in programmes such as Neighbourhood Renewal. Sustained economic growth and the re-distributive potential of economic surpluses have been identified as a political and policy issue in the National Anti Poverty Strategy. Ethnic group denies citizenship rights and the uniqueness of ethnic group as identities and lifestyles. The approach to Neighbourhood Renewal is also based on partnership delivery and drawing on the early experiences of URBAN II and in particular, on the way in which structures that located decision making as close to the target community as possible have value in developing sustainable regeneration outcomes.
