ABSTRACT
This book discusses on-going changes in the way in which demand for what could broadly be defined as merit and public goods, particularly but not exclusively for non-market housing, 1 has been met in three Western European countries in the context of urban regeneration schemes. These schemes point to structures and mechanisms of provision that differ markedly from those that were established in the early post-war years. Where once this provision was closely associated with the duties of the (welfare) state, it is now increasingly contingent upon the outcomes of a much wider array of processes and actors. Moreover, whereas non-market housing, in particular, used to be part of strategies for coping with the growth pressures of manufacturing-based cities and national economies, it now often is a key element of efforts to regenerate declining urban areas in the internationally more porous economies of Western Europe.
