ABSTRACT
The private enterprise ‘solution’ to the problem of the inner cities grew by fits and starts over a period of approximately a decade with the seeds being unwittingly sown in the mid-1970s. During this period (neither the beginning nor end of which can clearly be pinned down), the nature of inner city policy moved from public provision for ‘additional’ or ‘special’ needs to regeneration by private enterprise (albeit with a little help from public funds). In order to understand just how radical this shift of policy logic has been and how fundamentally the enterprise solution differs from preceding ‘solutions’, we use this chapter to chart the faltering steps on the way to the emergence of the private sector strategy as the predominant measure by which to ‘turn around’ the inner cities.
