It remains to be seen whether the impetus of the improvement programme can be recovered and whether the housing action areas and other procedures introduced by the Housing Act, 1974 will prove effective. If the amount of improvement work cannot be increased and sustained at a high level, reversion to a larger slum clearance programme seems inevitable. Slum clearance is bound to remain numerically important but the significance of a study of clearance does not depend on numbers alone. Slum clearance puts the ordinary citizen in a situation of extreme dependence relative to his local authority. The power of local government to nurture or to destroy existing ties of kinship and local mechanisms of mutual support was explicitly recognised but the relationship of citizens to officials during the slum clearance process was not a matter of direct concern. Problems of information and communication between the local authority and residents, particularly over matters affecting individuals' rights, have been their main focus.