Urban Studies, Vol. 43, No.

12, 2145 2162, November 2006

Addressing Europes Urban Challenges: Lessons from the EU URBAN Community Initiative
Juliet Carpenter
[Paper rst received, January 2005; in nal form, December 2005]

Summary. Urban issues have moved up the European Unions policy agenda over the past 10 years. Since the launch of the URBAN I Community Initiative (CI) in 1994, urban issues within regional policy have increasingly featured in EU policy documents. This paper presents the ndings of the ex-post evaluation of the URBAN CI that was implemented from 1994 to 1999, funded by the European Commission. It shows that while URBAN-style area-based initiatives were already taking place in some member-states, in the majority of countries the URBAN CI presented an innovative way of addressing area-based urban challenges, effectively leading the way for a sea-change in thinking on urban regeneration in many member-states, both in terms of content and process. The paper concludes with some reections on the implications of the ndings for addressing urban deprivation through area-based initiatives.

1. Introduction It has increasingly been recognised over the past decade that cities are the engines of regional growth, the motors of competitiveness that can contribute signicantly to a regions fortunes (Boddy and Parkinson, 2004). Cities play an important role in their respective local, regional and national economies, acting as the power-house for their wider economic systems (Buck et al., 2005). But even the most successful cities in terms of competitiveness are aficted by urban poverty and social exclusion, often spatially focused pockets of deprivation that are home to low-income-groups, few economic opportunities and run-down urban environments (Madanipour et al., 1998; Abrahamson and Hansen, 1996). Governments across Europe have developed their own responses to socio-spatial polarisation within cities, initiated at the

national, regional or local levels, according to the particular context. In the context of the UK in particular, the approach has been through area-based initiatives (ABIs), spatially targeted programmes focused on specic neighbourhoods which aim to address the multifaceted challenges of disadvantage. In the UK, these initiatives began in the 1960s with the Urban Programme and have evolved over the decades as the nature of the challenges has become clearer (Dabinett et al., 2001), into the current incarnation as New Deal for Communities. However, the fact that successive governments continue to need to plough resources into often the same deprived areas, with only mixed success, raises the question of whether ABIs actually make a difference. This paper looks at the example of an ABI instigated at the EU level, the URBAN Community Initiative, which was a neighbourhoodfocused urban regeneration programme

Juliet Carpenter is in the Department of Planning, Oxford Brookes University, Gipsy Lane, Oxford, OX3 0BP, UK. Fax: 01865 483 559. E-mail: jcarpenter@brookes.ac.uk. 0042-0980 Print=1360-063X Online=06=122145 18 # 2006 The Editors of Urban Studies DOI: 10.1080=00420980600990456

2146

JULIET CARPENTER

aiming to address the economic, social and environmental disadvantage faced by neighbourhoods across the EU. The programme was implemented between 1994 and 1999, in what were then 15 member-states of the EU, taking an approach that particularly focused on issues of process, partnership and capacity building through regeneration. The article draws on research undertaken for the ex-post evaluation of the programme and shows that, while the impact of the programme was necessarily limited due to the resources available, the programme nevertheless did have an inuence at a local, regional and even national level in some cases, bringing changes in the policy responses to urban deprivation within some individual member-states. However, mirroring debates that have taken place in the UK context, the research also raises questions over whether ABIs can address deep-seated challenges of polarisation and inequality within cities, or whether they need to be implemented in parallel with more fundamental policies to tackle urban deprivation at a more structural level. The article begins by reviewing the different perspectives on area-based initiatives, looking at the arguments for and against ABIs, as well as the pros and cons of people- versus place-based policies within ABIs. It then explores the achievements of the URBAN Community Initiative and the factors which inuenced this. The paper concludes with some implications of the ndings for our understanding of area-based regeneration initiatives and a discussion of how the URBAN experience can further our knowledge of deprived urban areas and ways to tackle them. 2. Interpretations of Deprivation and Area-based Initiatives There is much debate on the causes of urban deprivation and the potential effects and benets of area-based initiatives (for a summary, see Parkinson, 1998; Stewart, 2001; Skifter Andersen, 2002). Some see the existence of spatial concentrations of poverty as a symptom of globalisation, economic

restructuring and the uneven distribution of wealth under a market economy that generates social and economic exclusion (Oatley, 2000; Byrne, 1999). Poor areas exist because the poor exist (Lupton, 2003, p. 7). This would suggest that macro approaches to addressing poverty are needed. Economic growth brings uneven gains, beneting the rich rather than the poor and therefore concentrating wealth away from disadvantaged people and places. As Lupton notes The only way to transform the fortunes of poor areas is to transform the fortunes of the poor, by redistributing economic gains and not just by creating them (Lupton, 2003, p. 8). However, there are also arguments based on micro explanations for addressing the spatial concentration of poverty. It is argued that being resident in these neighbourhoods itself compounds the disadvantage faced by those living there. These so-called neighbourhood effects it is argued, can work in a number of ways. They reinforce disadvantage through the physical characteristics of the areafor example, through isolated location, poor quality housing and poor services (Buck, 2001). Others suggest that neighbourhood effects are also apparent in the discrimination that people face due to their residential address, in accessing the labour market for example, or credit services (Atkinson and Kintrea, 2001). Neighbourhoods become stigmatised in the eyes of institutions, investors and other citizens, a process which works to perpetuate the disadvantage that those areas and their residents face. However, some researchers have suggested that the area effects of deprivation are not so simple, that some individuals from deprived neighbourhoods manage to escape disadvantage. In a wider non-UK context, some researchers have argued that neighbourhood effects are relatively small in Europe and therefore do not justify a specic area-based approach to urban deprivation (Friedrichs, 1997; Musterd and Ostendorf, 1998).

ADDRESSING EUROPES URBAN CHALLENGES

2147

However, there does appear to be empirical evidence that, with certain caveats, living in neighbourhoods where there is a concentration of poverty works to the disadvantage of those residents (Atkinson and Kintrea, 2001). Thus, as Lupton suggests Area problems cannot be solved simply by macro policies, but need to be tackled by targeted programmes to address the compounding effects of neighbourhood (Lupton, 2003, p. 9). ABIs also play a useful role for governments, as they reinforce the perception that deprivation only exists in a few well-dened areas. Limited resources can be channelled into delimited neighbourhoods and therefore the impact is greaterto the credit of the government. However, within the area-based approach to tackling deprivation, there are different ways of addressing disadvantage, characterised as place-based or people-based, each with their proponents as well as their critics. On the one hand, place-based policies help by investing in run-down urban environments, which then become attractive to external investment. However, this then risks triggering increased property prices, population displacement and potential gentrication. On the other hand, by investing in people rather than places, individuals benet from support, but those fortunate enough to access opportunities through support are likely to move out of the neighbourhood when they have the chance to do so, leaving behind those at increased risk of exclusion (Taylor, 1998). There appears to be support for a combination of place- and people-based schemes within ABIs, as well as support for a combination of macro and micro policies to address spatial concentrations of deprivation. National-level policies are needed to address structural causes of poverty and the wider forces of decline, combined with neighbourhood-level policies to tackle the locallevel manifestations of social and economic exclusion (Kleinman, 2000). In the EU context, given the limited powers of the European Commission, its ability to

inuence macro policies of member-states is arguably limited. But through regional policy, it has the opportunity to implement micro policies, albeit in a small way, to address the issue of urban deprivation at the neighbourhood level, both people- and place-based. It is this micro-level policy aimed at urban areas, the URBAN Community Initiative, that will be examined in this paper, looking at the achievements that were made and the implications of the ndings for addressing urban disadvantage.

3. The URBAN Community Initiative 3.1 Background The URBAN Community Initiative (CI) was launched in 1994, at a time when cities across the EU were facing signicant economic, social and environmental challenges. Although urban deprivation was not a new phenomenon, with major slum clearance programmes having been implemented after the war, it became increasingly apparent during the 1980s that many EU urban areas were experiencing severe economic decline and population loss, with shifts from central to more suburban neighbourhoods. At the same time, areas dominated by social housing mainly on the outskirts of cities, that had been built to absorb city-centre slum clearance and out-migration, were themselves experiencing economic, social and environmental stress. As a consequence of these trends, neighbourhoods in crisis (quartiers en crise) were emerging, both in inner-city districts, as well as in suburban housing estates (see van den Berg et al. (1998) for an overview of the different member-state contexts). Up until 1994, the European Unions involvement in specically urban interventions was relatively limited. The Structural Fund programming period 198993 had seen major investment in infrastructure and human resource development, some of which was focused on urban areas, but explicit urban interventions had not been a feature of regional policy during that period. The URBAN Community Initiative was launched

2148

JULIET CARPENTER

in 1994 (CEC, 1994), nanced through the Structural Funds from 1994 to 1999, in response to the growing awareness at the EU policy level of the challenges facing Europes towns and cities.1 Pockets of high unemployment and socioeconomic deprivation existed in many urban areas, with certain social groups at risk of exclusion, particularly ethnic minority communities and migrants (Martin, 1998). Certain neighbourhoods were also facing severe environmental degradation and were in need of physical regeneration. Although these challenges were not experienced by all urban neighbourhoods, in most towns and cities, even the most prosperous, there were certain areas which were affected. The aim of the URBAN CI was to address these issues through the Structural Funds, to improve the living conditions of citizens in these areas and to promote sustainable urban development. The strategy adopted was a combination of place-based and peoplebased initiatives, depending on the particular local, regional or national context, recognising the need for individual strategies to meet locally specic challenges.

3.2 URBAN Strategies Modelled on the UKs experience of the Single Regeneration Budget, URBAN was an ABI promoting a spatial concentration of resources in specic urban neighbourhoods. URBAN targeted four different types of neighbourhood depending on the local and national context (Table 1): peripheral urban areas (37 per cent of all programmes), inner cities (32 per cent), historical city centres (19 per cent) and mixed areas that combined a variety of these three characteristics (12 per cent). When compared with van den Berg et al.s (1998) denition of urban problem areas in each member-state, there is a close correlation between the types of neighbourhood being targeted by URBAN in each national context and the areas highlighted by van den Berg as quartiers en crise in each national context.

URBAN was targeted at the most disadvantaged districts of the city. The average level of unemployment in the programme areas was over 20 per cent, and, in some neighbourhoods, as high as 40 per cent. The programme areas also housed high concentrations of immigrants and ethnic minority groups, representing up to 70 per cent of the target population in some areas. The programme was designed to address urban deprivation through an integrated approach to the problems faced by run-down neighbourhoods, using a partnership approach that involved local authorities and target communities to design and implement the programme. The programme supported a range of initiatives, both place- and people-based, including the launch of new economic activities, social and health provision, vocational training and the renovation of infrastructure and environmental improvements. Each of the 118 URBAN programmes was responding to two drivers when devising their approach to regeneration, one being the European Commissions original guidelines/ call for programmes and the other being the national and local contexts and challenges to be addressed. Although each programme was unique, it can be argued that there were four broad categories into which the programmes fell: a broad integrated approach (adopted by 45 per cent of programmes); an integrated approach with a specic focus, either economic, social or environmental (adopted by 26 per cent); a agship approach (10 per cent); and, a community-focused approach (18 per cent). All the UK programmes adopted a community-focused approach, reecting the strong partnership and inclusive approach to urban regeneration that was being rolled out at the time through the Single Regeneration Budget from 1994 (Oatley, 1998). Other countries, such as Germany, France and Spain, took an integrated approach, either balanced or focused. Evidence from the URBAN CI in certain countries suggests that a strong integrated approach may be most suitable in the worst areas of deprivation, where a holistic approach is most effective

ADDRESSING EUROPES URBAN CHALLENGES

2149

Table 1. Type of neighbourhood targeted by URBAN Type of neighbourhood Peripheral urban area: Those districts on the edge of urban areas, typically including social housing estates that date from the 1960s and 1970s Inner city: The core of the city, typically characterised by abandoned industrial buildings, dilapidated housing and a neglected environment Historic city centre: A city centre characterised by historic architecture and the potential to develop cultural heritage Mixed: Areas that combine a variety of the above characteristics Total Number 44 37 23 14 118 Percentage 37 32 19 12 100

in tackling the multidimensional issues faced by disadvantaged areas. In areas of potential, where there are lost opportunities, evidence suggests that a strategy based on agship projects has a good chance of securing sustainable regeneration. These projects can act as a catalyst for further regeneration, while other smaller, lower-prole projects within the same programme can help to build community involvement and encourage ownership. Although a central location is the most obvious place for a strategy based on agships, in order to maximise visibility, there is also a role for these strategies in peripheral locations, where they can act as a focus for local actors and community-based organisations. 3.3 URBAN Finance The URBAN Community Initiative supported a total of 118 URBAN programmes throughout the 15 member-states. The key facts about URBAN are detailed in Table 2. A total of 900 million euros of EU investment was allocated to the programme, although only 720 million euros had been spent by the European Commission by June 2003. This brings the average actual EU funding per programme to 6.1 million euros. Contrast this with the current UK government spending on New Deal for Communities, of an average 50 million per programme or around 74 million euros (Lawless, 2004) and the relative scale of URBAN in the UK is put in clear perspective.

In terms of expenditure, 38 per cent of actual expenditure went to physical and environmental regeneration, 32 per cent supported activities in entrepreneurship and employment, 23 per cent nanced initiatives relating to social inclusion, 4 per cent was spent on technical assistance and 2 per cent went into activities in ICT and transport. A further 2 per cent supported other types of initiative. However, there were signicant variations in the type of expenditure by member-states. Physical/environmental regeneration accounted for 62 per cent of actual expenditure in Italy, as opposed to just 10 per cent in Denmark. Expenditure on employment and entrepreneurship ranged from 52 per cent in the Netherlands, to just 18 per cent in Italy. Social inclusion measures

Table 2. Key facts about the URBAN Community Initiative 199499 Over the period 1994 99 Total number of URBAN programmes Total EU funding committed (million euros) Total EU funding paid out up to June 2003 (million euros) Average actual EU funding per URBAN programme (million euros) Average total direct investment per URBAN programme: EU funding plus direct domestic co-nancing (million euros) 118 900 720 6.1 11.8

2150

JULIET CARPENTER

Table 3. Actual expenditure on the URBAN CI as of June 2003, broken down by source of funding ERDF Amount (million euros) Percentage 615.6 41.5 ESF 95.9 6.5 Total EU 711.5 48.0 Other public 671.9 45.4 Private 97.8 6.6 Total 1481.1 100

Source: URBAN CI programme managers, June 2003.

accounted for 46 per cent of actual expenditure in Portugal, as opposed to just 12 per cent in the Netherlands, Austria and Greece. This in part reects the national policy agendas that were being pursued at the time, with EU funds providing support to the nationally held priorities. But URBAN also set the agenda in some cases, piloting approaches that had not been tested before in some urban area-based contexts and, in some cases this proved inuential in shifting national policy priorities. Table 3 shows the actual expenditure for the 103 programmes that had provided data by June 2003, broken down by source of funding. These gures relate to direct investment. However, indirect leverage, which is not accounted for in these gures, was also signicant in some cases. Private-sector leverage has been greater than expected, initially anticipated at 5.4 per cent of total expenditure, but actually representing 6.6 per cent of total funding. Examples included the arrival of new SMEs into the area, improvements to the housing stock by private home-owners and shop-keepers investing in their business. Indirect private-sector leverage was evident in some programme areas, particularly through the volume of construction and restoration work that is being undertaken in some areas by private developers. There were also some examples of very signicant leverage as a result of the programme. In Rostock (Germany), there was signicant indirect leverage, from both public and private sources. Further public investment took place in and around the programme area, including the renovation of a large building for reuse by the university. A study on indirect private leverage in the area has estimated that, for every euro invested in

housing renovation in the URBAN area, a further 3.9 euros has been generated. In Graz (Austria), a survey on the indirect leverage effects of the programme has shown that investment in the area during implementation is estimated at 242.66 million euros, of which only 29.39 million euros were directly related to the URBAN budget as originally planned. In these cases, URBAN acted as a catalyst for regeneration, with leverage bringing in further funds to the programme area. However, the leverage of private nance in some cases signalled the process of gentrication, bringing increased house prices and population displacement. We will return to this issue later in the paper. 4. Evaluation Methodology An evaluation of the URBAN CI was commissioned in 2002 by the European Commission,2 and was carried out by a team of independent urban experts across the EU between November 2002 and July 2003.3 The evaluation was based on an assessment of 118 URBAN programmes and 5 urban pilot projects (UPPs) and looked at various aspects of the programme: the selection of programme areas and the strategies adopted, their effectiveness, the management and implementation systems, their impact and Community value added (including the inuence on existing urban policies, the promotion of transnational learning and raising awareness of other EU policies). The methodology involved literature reviews, desk research, case studies, structured interviews with stakeholders (primarily the URBAN programme co-ordinators) and street surveys. This combination of approaches was essential to address the

ADDRESSING EUROPES URBAN CHALLENGES

2151

issues both at the individual programme-area level, as well as those at the EU level, in order to draw conclusions that would have pertinence for the programme as a whole and beyond. The methodology did not rely on quantifying outputs and outcomes, as these data were unavailable for many programmes. Indeed, this method of evaluation would not have been appropriate for a programme that placed emphasis on issues of process, partnership and capacity building, where interpretative evaluation approaches are more appropriate to assess the impact of interventions on residents lives. However, with such a large number of programmes, following an initial review of all interventions, it was then necessary to take a sample of the total 118 programmes, in order to look in more depth at the impact of the programme and the processes involved in its implementation. The evaluation highlighted a number of methodological challenges that are pertinent in this type of major evaluation, covering as it did a variety of national contexts. A key methodological issue in the assessment of effectiveness was the denition of success in each national context. Success is a relative concept and, in assessing how successful the URBAN programme has been, it was necessary to consider three different levels: bottom up, top down and nationally specic criteria. From the bottom up, success was measured against individual programmelevel target outputs and outcomes where they were available, that were dened locally for each programme. From the top down, programmes were assessed against the original objectives set out by the European Commission, which were

(c) To act as a catalyst for lasting urban change through a broad-based approach. (d) To fund innovative projects that, where possible, form part of a long-term urban integration strategy being implemented by the cities concerned. Thus, they focused on what Hall (1997) has termed both inward-looking and outwardlooking approaches to area-based regeneration, addressing internal problems related to issues such as infrastructure and the environment, as well as external problems related to isolation from the rest of the city and the need to link with wider regeneration strategies in the city as a whole. In between these two levels of analysis, each national evaluator also identied other conditions or factors that were used as national success criteria for each of the programmes (Table 4). It was important to recognise that because each member-state began from a different starting-point in terms of their urban regeneration agenda and processes, the expectations nationally from the programme were also very different. For example, Sweden and Denmark highlighted issues of sustainable development within their aims for URBAN, while in the case of Greece, the concern was more to establish a coherent urban policy which was lacking at the time. At each level (local, national, EU), success was measured on three counts: in terms of outcomes that beneted the target area and population; in terms of management and delivery processes; and in terms of the sustainability of the initiatives and outcomes, given the time-limited nature of the programme. The complexities of carrying out international comparative research have been recognised by many (for example, Masser and Williams, 1988; Allen, 1996; Murie and Musterd, 2004) and the difculties in devising a methodology that takes into account diverse national contexts are considerable. While it had limitations, the three-point evaluation method used for this study has addressed some of these difculties, by applying a

(a) To address the levels of social exclusion in inner city and peripheral areas. (b) To address issues faced by deprived urban areas through support to business creation, improvement of infrastructure and the physical environment, provision of customised training and actions for equality of opportunities and social amenities.

2152

JULIET CARPENTER

Table 4. The denition of success as applied to the URBAN programmes in each national context Austria Belgium Denmark Finland France Germany Greece Ireland Italy Luxembourg Netherlands Portugal Spain To promote institutional co-operation and stimulate strategic integrated approaches, in the planning as well as implementation phases To promote an integrated approach to urban regeneration To promote new urban development based on the principles of sustainability To encourage positive development of social networks and long-lasting improvements in the built and natural environment in programme areas To enhance the theme of economic development and employment in the contrat de ville and the urban revival plan, and to mobilise the private sector To promote a truly comprehensive and integrated approach, especially through including economic objectives and activities in existing strategies To ll the gap existing in the sphere of urban policy in Greece To promote community involvement and consultation, and strengthen the role and capacity of municipalities in running regeneration programmes To increase deliverability, to promote horizontal integration within municipalities by overcoming a sectoral approach to urban problems and to add value through participation and partnership To promote the regeneration zones programme that the government was launching To focus on tourism and cultural development, to increase the visibility of the programme To promote more integrated policies by supporting a broad approach to urban issues in Lisbon and Porto To increase community involvement in the management and implementation of URBAN, to promote co-operation between different levels of government and between different departments within the municipality, to involve the private sector in urban regeneration To establish active partnerships around environmental issues in a local and regional context To increase community involvement in the management and implementation of urban regeneration projects

Sweden United Kingdom

Source: National evaluators feedback from eldwork, June 2003.

common methodological framework, while at the same time taking account of national contexts. This does not, however, negate the difculties of carrying out such transnational studies and further work on developing crossnational methodologies, particularly in the light of EU enlargement and the added complexity that this brings, is called for. 5. How Successful was URBAN? In the context of other local and national funding streams, nancial support to URBAN was relatively limited. Coupled with this was a focus on neighbourhoods with weak local economies, and so it comes as little surprise that URBAN had limited potential to instigate fundamental shifts in

economic circumstances. In addition, at the time of URBANs introduction, the culture of monitoring and evaluation was not strong in most member-states, and data collection both for baseline positions and for tracking progress was patchy. However, even given these limitations, there have been successful outputs from many programmes, with an enhanced physical environment and improved socioeconomic conditions, evidenced if not by hard data, through programme visits and interviews with programme managers. 5.1 Achievements of URBAN The evaluation showed that on a number of levels, the URBAN programme was successful in addressing urban deprivation and

ADDRESSING EUROPES URBAN CHALLENGES

2153

Figure 1. The effects of URBAN (percentage of programmes with impacts).

disadvantage. Figure 1 shows the effects of the URBAN programmes across the EU, the most commonly cited being improvements to the physical environment, occurring in over 90 per cent of programme areas. This took a variety of forms, from historical restoration work in city centres (for example in Malaga), to the renovation of disused railway arches as artists studios and cultural spaces (Vienna), and the creation of new workspace facilities for community enterprises (Bremen). New facilities and community centres that were constructed through the programme often then served to house social projects also funded by the programme. This was the case in Rotterdam, where the Schiecentrale project saw the conversion of an old power plant into a media and ICT centre. The centre provided space for business start-ups in the ICT and audio-visual sectors, indirectly stimulating the local economy of the Delfshaven area. Other examples of physical improvements included a sports centre in Duisburg, business space and a training centre in Roubaix-Tourcoing, and a community centre and recreational space in Graz. However, as others have argued (Parkinson, 1998, Social Exclusion Unit, 1998), physical improvements are not sufcient to turn around the fortunes of a deprived neighbourhood. Taking an integrated approach,

URBAN also aimed to address social exclusion through measures such as job creation, provision of training, supporting new businesses and increasing provision of social services to address the needs of local communities. For example, in Barakaldo (Spain), the programme provided new social facilities through the Centro de Servicios Sociales and the Centro de Dia, to target the needs of the local population at risk of social exclusion, including the elderly, mentally disabled people, women and young people. Support included advisory services and facilities for new and existing businesses, and by the end of the programme, there had been a signicant drop in levels of unemployment in the target area. However, caution should be exercised attributing this directly to the programme rather than wider structural economic trends, and the wider impact of such support would have to be measured over a longer time frame than was available for the evaluation. Other examples of socioeconomic achievements included the Hague, where over 600 jobs were created through the programme, and 240 people were trained, while in Shefeld 58 jobs were attributed to the programme, along with 118 temporary posts. However, again, its important to consider the nature of these jobs, whether they have been taken up by local people or those from outside

2154

JULIET CARPENTER

the area, and their long term sustainability. While temporary jobs provide valuable experience, they do not offer security to those who face exclusion, and this is an aspect that the programme did not address in sufcient detail. Deep-rooted economic exclusion cannot be addressed by part-time temporary employment opportunities. 5.2 Outcomes of URBAN Community engagement and social capital. Much has been written about the importance of community involvement in urban regeneration programmes and how the notion of social capital (Putnam, 1993) can help in understanding community participation and regeneration (Taylor, 2000). While many agree that community networks and social capital play a key role in successful urban development, there are debates over how networks of trust and understanding are built, how to empower local communities and the role of community cohesion in urban regeneration (Forrest and Kearns, 2001). In the context of the Structural Funds on Merseyside, Hibbert et al. (2001) have argued that it is important to show how social capital is formed through the scaling up of local associational relations, networks and institutions, to wider power structures and relations. The evidence from their research suggests that trust amongst participants is central to this process. Findings from the URBAN evaluation reinforce the importance of community involvement in regeneration programmes and also point to the importance of trust in this process. Communities were variously involved in all stages of the programme, from contributing to its design, through helping to select projects that best matched the needs of the neighbourhood, to sitting on steering groups and monitoring committees, closely involved in the management of the programme. This bottom up approach to the design and delivery of programmes was innovative both in southern member-states, where there was little history of community participation (Chorianopoulos, 2002), and

also in northern member-states where, back in 1994 when the programme was launched, such community involvement beyond tokenism was rare. In the URBAN programme in Derry/ Londonderry, for example, an extensive Community Audit was undertaken at the start of the design process, which helped to establish the local communitys needs and aspirations for their area. The programme in Northern Ireland is widely seen to have had a signicant impact in terms of building bridges between the two religious communities in the city and helping to build trust between partnership members (Murtagh and McKay, 2003). This application of the European Commissions subsidiarity principle, where decisions are taken at the lowest appropriate level, has been taken as a model for other policy areas. In all, there was evidence of social capital being built in 85 per cent of programmes. In Shefeld, an evaluation sub-group of the partnership responsible for implementation was set up to appraise project proposals, using a community-devised scoring system relating to need, demand, justication and t with the Action Plan. Recommendations were then made to the partnership for project selection. All projects were endorsed by the local community before they went for appraisal. This was a key part of the communitys involvement, helping to build a sense of ownership with the programme. However, while in the main community engagement in URBAN was a signicant achievement, there appear to be contradictions inherent in the programme, which worked against the involvement of communities in the programme. For the small level of resources available, URBAN was a topheavy administratively complex programme. The jargon associated with EU Structural Funds and the bureaucracy and paperwork involved tended to isolate communities and made it difcult to sustain community involvement, as there was a risk of feeling overwhelmed by the jargon and disengaging from the process. This also supports Hibbert et al.s ndings that

ADDRESSING EUROPES URBAN CHALLENGES

2155

Not only is jargon alienating, it can increase levels of mistrust between communities and outside agencies (Hibbert et al., 2001, p. 156). Although the emphasis was on local engagement, some found that the programme was not at all community-friendly. In some cases, programme managers felt that they were encouraged to take risks in funding projects, such as those run by small community groups without a track record of delivery, and yet there was not the necessary exibility in time-scales, reporting requirements and outcomes that involvement of such groups can necessitate. In another example, a lack of clarity about the issue of eligible expenditure resulted in claw-back from some projects. Again, it was the community groups that were particularly hard hit, for whom the availability of funds is often a signicant issue. The tension between programme complexity and community involvement was also played out towards the end of the programme period. Engaging the community in regeneration programmes always takes much longer than anticipated. However, time to build capacity among the local community was not integrated into the time-scale and so, towards the end of the programme, due to earlier delays in getting the community involved, a number of programmes faced pressure to spend their budgets in a short space of time. In some cases, this led to the approval of larger projects with less of a community focus, as they were seen as easier to implement, although they risked compromising the strategic and integrated nature of the programme. This conict between community involvement and complexity highlights the difculties inherent in engaging local groups in managing and implementing programmes and projects, a nding that has echoes in the experience of New Deal for Communities, where there have been tensions between community involvement and programme delivery. It also suggests that time must be built into the timetable for capacity building and engagement. A number of programme managers felt that there was a lack of clear guidance on the aims, objectives and action planning details of the URBAN programme. In some member-

states, it transpired that even the national managing authority, which were the programme managers direct contact with the European Commission, were not entirely clear about the intricacies of the programme, leading to delays in getting responses to questions and, on occasion, conicting messages. Instances such as these served to undermine the trust that was being built up between the different partners and thus to erode the social capital that was being formed. To alleviate some of the problems associated with the complexity of EU programmes, several programmes such as Shefeld and Vienna set up local project ofces within the designated URBAN area which helped to break down barriers, offering the local community a drop-in point, to answer their queries and concerns. This was useful for local community groups without previous experience of involvement, as it provided the support and facilities they needed both to submit an application for funding and to manage their projects once funding had been granted. Other programmes, such as Londons Hackney Tower Hamlets, produced a jargonbusting Guide to successful project development and management which set out the regulations, requirements and systems related to running an EU project in plain English. These initiatives all aimed to build trust between community groups and the programme management team, central, as Hibbert et al. (2001) argue, to the process of urban regeneration and a critical component of social capital. Nevertheless, there can be questions raised about the depth of social capital in a number of cases, with the added layer of bureaucracy and management processes imposed by the EU, increasing the risk of mistrust or breakdown in trust. Urban governance. Together with the emphasis on community involvement, the URBAN programme was also characterised by the importance it placed on new forms of urban governance and the process of doing urban regeneration, through the application of the Commissions partnership principle (CEC, 1999). The challenges of urban deprivation in most national contexts had traditionally been

2156

JULIET CARPENTER

addressed by single agencies, most commonly through physical renewal, or environmental improvements, managed at the national level. URBAN helped to raise awareness among policy-makers that urban deprivation was a challenge with many facets and demanded a multiagency, multilevel approach to devise integrated solutions to address those challenges (at the economic, social and environmental levels). URBAN programmes aimed to promote joined-up working both across sectors and between levels of government (national, regional and local). Evidence suggests that one of the most important legacies of the URBAN programme has been this partnership working, which has paved the way for the formation of lasting relationships and the creation of networks of public- and private-sector organisations, brought round the table in many cases for the rst time to focus on area-based initiatives. While it has been argued that there are limits to local partnership working (Geddes, 2000), and clear tensions that arise within regeneration partnerships (Lawless, 2004), many of the URBAN case studies showed that there was real added value in managing regeneration using a partnership approach, despite the challenges involved and delays that were often incurred. Over half the programmes had institutional effects in terms of new partnerships and ways of doing regeneration. In Magdeburg, for example, the inclusion of the Chamber of Crafts and the Chamber of Trade and Industry in the partnership was seen as ground-breaking at the time and has set a precedent for the inclusion of a wide range of non-traditional actors in other partnerships. The partnership has been maintained and now operates at a regional level. Owners of SMEs in the area also formed an association during the implementation of URBAN, which continued running after the programme had nished, to promote the economic development of their area. In the same area, a group of committed and vocal residents formed a Citizens Advisory Council, providing support and information to local people, which again was active in community-based work well beyond the lifetime of the URBAN programme.

It is worth noting the role of the private sector here for, while there were examples of successful programmes that did not engage the private sector to a signicant degree, there were also those that failed to achieve their ambitions, partly because the private sector pulled out of the partnership. For example, in Thessaloniki, one major project failed to materialise because the initial commitment of support from a private company was withdrawn. The programme in Magdeburg anticipated supporting the development of the local economy through encouraging SMEs, but this aspect of the programme proved difcult, as banks were less than willing to share in the risks of micro enterprises and business start-ups. However, the role of the private sector in regeneration is a double-edged sword, as will be seen later in this paper. The sustainability of these partnerships has been positive in many cases, in taking forward not only the urban regeneration agenda, but also being applied to other specic urban governance arenas, such as community and youth work, environmental issues and housing. In cities such as Helsinki, Genova and Bristol, the experience of URBAN fed directly into the planning and delivery of the subsequent URBAN II programme (2000 06). In the case of Bristol, this inuence also extended to the delivery of Objective 2 funding as well. This is not to say that the URBAN programme did not come up against the familiar problems that multiagency regeneration partnerships face, such as reaching consensus in decision-making when so many voices and opinions are to be taken into account, uneven balance of power and lack of trust (Raco, 1999; Rhodes et al., 2003). A number of the URBAN case studies conrmed that broad partnerships bring a complexity that can slow down the implementation process. Joining up across sectors and departments brought difculties and delays, particularly in countries such as Denmark, which had traditionally adopted a rigid sector-oriented approach to urban redevelopment. It has been argued that managing and implementing a successful regeneration programme requires the solid foundation of

ADDRESSING EUROPES URBAN CHALLENGES

2157

data-driven needs analyses, as well as the preparation and implementation of monitoring and evaluation systems, to assess progress and achievements (Dabinett et al., 2001). At the time of URBANs introduction, the culture of monitoring and evaluation was not strong and, in some member-states, almost non-existent. However, URBAN was in part responsible for encouraging a culture of monitoring and assessment of programmes in certain member-states, for example in Bari (Italy), where the practice has been strengthened and applied to other programmes in the city. However, there was still the feeling in some areas that the programme had not been designed at the outset with the local context in mind. For example, in Shefeld, the initial targets set for training beneciaries of the European Social Fund (ESF) were unrealistic, given the postcode restrictions and the small number of potential beneciaries in the dened area. Similarly, for Londons Park Royal, the programme outputs were agreed between the European Commission and the Government Ofce for London without input or consultation with local stakeholders. Targets for the number of new business start-ups were unachievable in one area, as it was predominantly residential, with little space designated for commercial use. Local groups felt excluded and alienated from the programme, which made it more difcult to build ownership and engage local people. In the case of the individual URBAN programmes, the challenge of decision-making across departments and interests was not responsible for blocking denitively the progress of the programme, although there were inevitable cases of disparate views, disagreement and necessary consensus building. However, despite the challenges they present, the URBAN experience conrms that multisector partnerships are critical for the management of integrated urban regeneration schemes, as long as a balance can be struck between inclusivity and complexity. Inuence on urban strategies and national urban policy. It has already been noted that the URBAN CI was launched in 1994 in

very different national policy contexts. Although member-states were facing some common challenges in their towns and cities (such as high unemployment, social exclusion, physical decay), there were also nationspecic concerns which were being addressed through individual national policies. In 1994, a number of member-states had already introduced ABIs to address urban deprivation (for example, the Netherlands, France, the UK, and to a lesser extent, Denmark and Ireland) (Atkinson, 2000). In the main, however, these initiatives had a specic sectoral focus, rather than taking an integrated approach and, in other countries, there was no provision for a specic national policy relating to urban areas, other than physical planning policies (see van den Berg et al. (1998) for further details of the national urban policy contexts). From this low baseline position, the potential inuence of URBAN was therefore strong. The evaluation showed that in some memberstates such as Italy, URBAN had a signicant inuence on policy, with the government subsequently funding several national programmes in deprived urban areas, such as the Contratti di quartiere (Neighbourhood contracts) which were urban social renewal programmes based on the participation of local residents and which were largely seen as the result of the experience of URBAN. The Italian government has continued to fund programmes in the urban policy eld, taking its lead from the integrated approach that was rst introduced through URBAN. The inuence of URBAN was also strong at the municipal level, particularly in Spain and Germany, where it was adopted as a model for further regeneration activity. However, in other countries, the advent of URBAN on the policy scene did not introduce a radically new approach to tackling urban issues. Both the UK and the Netherlands already had well-established area-based neighbourhood renewal policies, such as the community-focused Single Regeneration Budget (SRB) in the UK and the nationally led Big Cities Policy in the Netherlands (van Kempen, 2000), which both mirrored URBAN by taking

2158

JULIET CARPENTER

an integrated area-based approach to regeneration. In France, the contrat de ville ` addressed urban deprivation (Le Gales and Mawson, 1994), whilst in Ireland, there was also already a strong tradition of partnership working in small-area interventions. Although the UK government claimed that URBAN had not added anything new to the urban policy scene, given the long history of ABIs and an integrated approach to regeneration (interview by author with ODPM ofcial, 2003), evidence from case study work in the UK suggests that the emphasis on partnership working went above and beyond what had been achieved previously. This nding also supports other work in the UK, which has shown particularly in the context of Northern Ireland, that URBANs emphasis on community participation and social regeneration went beyond the previous regeneration practices in terms of its participatory style and delivery systems, and also had signicant benets in terms of bringing the two communities in Northern Ireland together (Murtagh, 2001). Overall, the evaluation found that URBAN was original and inuential in 11 memberstates, introducing for the rst time an integrated approach to urban renewal (for example, in Austria), new policy instruments (in the case of Denmark) and stimulating discussion about urban needs, targets for urban policy and the means of achieving a better balance between polarised neighbourhoods (for example, in Finland). It would be interesting to track this inuence further to see how far this has ltered up the policy-making chain and whether there have been transverse impacts in other policy areas. 5.3 Adverse (Negative) Effects A programme such as URBAN aimed to address the growing spatial inequalities that are evident in towns and cities across Europe. However, there were a small number of cases (under 10 per cent) where the outcome was just the opposite. It can be argued that ABIs just displace problems between different neighbourhoods, rather than add to the overall economic and social

well-being of the city as a whole (see Parkinson, 1998). While the evaluation does not show that this was generally the case, there were examples of negative spill-over effects from the assisted areas into other neighbourhoods which go some way towards supporting this argument. In the case of Graz, there was some evidence that the improvements made within the area led to the displacement of the activities of the red light district to adjacent neighbourhoods. In Rostock, unregulated changes to the area brought about by the URBAN programme, particularly in terms of housing and property, have led to a process of gentrication, driving sections of the socially disadvantaged population into other areas. The physical appearance of the neighbourhood in Rostock has also changed dramatically, with the arrival of new economic activities such as pubs, cafes, restaurants and shops, forming a gentried consumption urbanscape in what was previously a predominantly low-key residential area. Similarly, the target area in Marseille has seen an increase in rental prices and increases in the level of local taxes in the area. Although these effects were by no means universal, they raise important questions about the overall aims of ABIs and for whom the intervention takes place. Atkinson argues that area-based initiatives need to be supported by wider policies (on the economy, employment, social protection)in other words, place-based policies need to be integrated with people-based policies (Atkinson, 2000, p. 1046). In the cases highlighted above, this balance between the focus on people and place was not achieved, with consequences of displacement for the local people involved. Although initial policy statements purport to support local community groups, build capacity and promote local well-being, the risk is that capital interests will spot an opportunity and, without mechanisms to prevent this, invest in the area and eventually displace the original residents and local economic structures. A programme that has explicit social inclusion

ADDRESSING EUROPES URBAN CHALLENGES

2159

objectives also necessarily needs mechanisms to protect local residents from the risk of displacement. Regeneration partnerships need to be aware of the potential issues and to identify actions to minimise the risks. 6. Implications of Findings In the URBAN programme, the level of resources involved, and hence the physical outputs achieved, were modest. In the majority of cases (80 per cent), national resources were already being targeted in the selected areas, given the high levels of deprivation in each neighbourhood. In addition, the time-scales for the programmes were short and the impacts were only most signicant in those areas where the particular local context enabled relatively small interventions to generate disproportionate knock-on effects. However, at the end of the programme period, many of the URBAN programme areas were still absolutely and relatively disadvantaged, with spatial concentrations of socially excluded groups. So how far did URBAN make a difference (at the local, regional or national levels) and what did it bring to the regeneration agenda? URBAN set itself high ambitions. The level of resources and limited time-scale were not commensurate with the scale of the problem. As a result, its impact in terms of fundamental reductions of deprivation and exclusion was always going to be limited. However, there are broader questions over whether such small regeneration programmes can ever achieve fundamental changes in terms of addressing inequality, given the continued polarisation that exists in cities. As an alternative, extensive and large-nanced regeneration projects (such as the Guggenheim in Bilbao) might appear to be the solution. However, research suggests that these too lead to continued social exclusion, as well as to the for mation of new urban elites and less democratic forms of urban governance (Moulaert et al., 2003). So, although limited in terms of its fundamental impact, the URBAN programme did add value through its impact on urban governance, by creating the

conditions for change in the future, in terms of building partnerships and trust between members, developing local capacity and introducing innovative approaches to doing and managing urban regeneration, both at the local and in some cases, national level. There are a number of implications from the ndings that are important to bring out for other ABI programmes. First, in terms of partnership working, while partnerships need to be inclusive, there are issues to address around inclusivity versus simplicity, as complexity can risk compromising the very objectives of the programme. The additional layer of bureaucracy that came from being an EU-funded programme brought added complexity that arguably risked compromising the objectives of the programme. Delivery of regeneration is emerging as a key issue for successful outcomes and, as regeneration management tends towards complexity, the challenges of this need to be understood. Linked to this is the importance of social capital in partnership working and building up trust to bring different groups and stakeholders together in working relationships. Secondly, it is clear that despite the funding from URBAN and many other nationally targeted policies, pockets of urban deprivation still exist throughout the EU. Evidence from the URBAN experience suggests that ABIs do provide a useful approach to address spatially concentrated urban disadvantage, but that they need support from other quarters to be the most effective. Locally driven placebased initiatives need to be complemented by locally responsive people-based initiatives, with the whole needing to be set within a policy context sympathetic to ABIs. This policy context is important at two levels. At the city level, ABIs should be part of wider sub-city and city nested strategies to address deprivation in an integrated way (Atkinson, 2000, p. 1050). At the national level, it is becoming increasingly important to bend the activities of national mainstream service providers (such as in education, health and crime prevention), to target deprived neighbourhoods. In addition, the structural causes of poverty and deprivation

2160

JULIET CARPENTER

need to be addressed at the national level, through macro policies to address the fundamentals of economic restructuring, worklessness, national skills and training policies, and social exclusion. The key is to build up coherence between different levels of governance and their strategies. Globalisation is bringing increased social and spatial inequalities, particularly in an urban context. The URBAN experience conrms that ABIs are a useful policy tool in helping to address urban deprivation, in particular when applied in city and national policy contexts that work in the same direction. Nevertheless, as Carley and Kirk (1998) also found they do not solve the problem. There are still many unsolved challenges in Europes most deprived neighbourhoods and unanswered questions about the most effective way to tackle spatially concentrated disadvantage. In particular, breaking the vicious or downward cycle (Hall, 1997) in run-down neighbourhoods is an issue that will continue to tax urban policy-makers in the future. URBAN has contributed to demonstrating how ABIs can contribute to turning the vicious cycle into a virtuous cycle, particularly through creating the conditions for change in the future. But it appears that the key to tackling deep-rooted disadvantage in urban neighbourhoods lies in complementary macro policies that address the structural causes of poverty and disadvantage. It is through a combination of macro and micro policies that those facing deprivation in Europes most disadvantaged neighbourhoods have the greatest chance of moving out of poverty. Notes
1. The Structural Funds are the European Commissions nancial instruments to implement its regional policy. The majority of the Funds (around 90 per cent in the period 199499) are channelled through mainstream regional policy tools (Objectives 1, 2, 3 and the Cohesion Fund programmes). The remaining budget supports the so-called Community Initiatives (around 9 per cent of the total) and innovative actions (around 1 per cent). The logic of this hierarchy of interventions is that innovative actions pilot new approaches

2.

3.

to specic challenges, whereas the Community Initiatives provide resources for testing approaches to problems shared by different member-states (CEC, 1994b). Examples of Community Initiatives in the current programming period 2000 06 are URBAN II, EQUAL, INTERREG and Leader . (For an overview of EU Structural Funds, see Williams, 1996; Bachtler and Turok, 1997.) The evaluation was undertaken on behalf of the Evaluation Unit of DG Regio of the European Commission, under the guidance of a Steering Group of European Commission ofcials and with the advice of three independent experts on EU urban issues. The present article is published with the kind agreement of the European Commission, although all views expressed are the authors own. The full text of the report (CEC, 2004) can be found on DG Regios website (http://europa.eu.int/comm/regional_policy/sources/ docgener/evaluation/rado_en.htm). The team of national evaluators that undertook the eldwork in each member-state was lead by GHK Consulting and included the following: Athens Economics (Greece), Eau2Estudios (Spain), ECORYS (the Netherlands), GHK Consulting (Belgium, Ireland and the UK), IRS (Italy), Kaupunkitutkimus (Finland), Quaternaire (Portugal), Statistics and Research Aland (Sweden and Denmark), Urbanis (France and Luxembourg) and URBANO (Germany and Austria). The author would like to acknowledge the work of all those involved in undertaking the national eldwork and contributing to discussions in the research meetings, providing material on which this paper is based.

References
ABRAHAMSON , P. and HANSEN , F. (1996) Poverty in the European Union. Report to the European Parliament, Centre for Alternative Social Analysis (CASA), Copenhagen. ALLEN , J. (1996) Travellers tales: validating work done in another country, European Urban and Regional Research, 3(3), pp. 79 92. ATKINSON , R. (2000) Combating social exclusion in Europe: the new urban policy challenge, Urban Studies, 37(5/6), pp. 1037 1055. ATKINSON , R. and KINTREA , K. (2001) Disentangling area effects: evidence from deprived and non-deprived neighbourhoods, Urban Studies, 38(12), pp. 2277 2298. BACHTLER , J. and TUROK , I. (Eds) (1997) The Coherence of EU Regional Policy: Contrasting Perspectives on the Structural Funds. London: Jessica Kingsley.

ADDRESSING EUROPES URBAN CHALLENGES

2161

BERG , L. VAN DEN , BRAUN , E. and MEER , J. VAN DER (Eds) (1998) National Urban Policies in the European Union. Aldershot: Ashgate. BODDY , M. and PARKINSON , M. (2004) City Matters: Competitiveness, Cohesion and Urban Governance. Bristol: Policy Press. BUCK , N. (2001) Identifying neighbourhood effects on social exclusion, Urban Studies, 38(12), pp. 2251 2275. BUCK , N., GORDON , I., HARDING , A. and TUROK , I. (Eds) (2005) Changing Cities: Rethinking Urban Competitiveness, Cohesion and Governance. Basingstoke: Palgrave. BYRNE , D. (1999) Social Exclusion. Buckingham: Open University Press. CARLEY , M. and KIRK , K. (1998) Sustainable by 2020? A Strategic Approach to Urban Regeneration for Britains Cities. Bristol: The Policy Press/York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation. CEC (COMMISSION FOR ENVIRONMENTAL CO -OPERATION ) (1994a) Laying down guidelines for operational programmes which member states are invited to establish in the framework of a Community Initiative concerning urban areas. Decision 94/C 180/02, 15 June 1994, Notice to Member States, CEC, Brussels. CEC (1994b) Guide to Community Initiatives, 1994 1999. Luxembourg: Ofce for Ofcial Publications of the European Communities. CEC (1999) Thematic evaluation report of the Partnership Principle. CEC, Brussels. CEC (2004) Ex-post evaluation of URBAN Community Initiative. CEC, Brussels. CHORIANOPOULOS , I. (2002) Urban restructuring and governance: north south differences in Europe and the EU URBAN initiative, Urban Studies, 39(4), pp. 705726. DABINETT , G., LAWLESS , P., RHODES , J. and TYLER , P. (2001) A review of the evidence base for regeneration and practice. DETR, London. FORREST , R. and KEARNS , A. (2001) Social cohesion, social capital and the neighbourhood, Urban Studies, 38(12), pp. 2125 2143. FRIEDRICHS , J. (1997) Context effects of poverty neighbourhoods on residents, in: H VESTERGAARD (Ed.) Housing in Europe, pp. 1460. Hrsholm: Danish Building Institute. GEDDES , M. (2000) Tackling social exclusion in the European Union? The limits to the new orthodoxy of local partnership, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 24(4), pp. 782800. HALL , P. (1997) Regeneration policies for peripheral housing estates: inward- and outward-looking approaches, Urban Studies, 34, pp. 873890. HIBBERT , K., JONES , P. and MEEGAN , R. (2001) Tackling social exclusion: the role of social capital in urban regeneration on Merseyside

from mistrust to trust?, European Planning Studies, 9(2), pp. 141161. KEMPEN , R. VAN (2000) Big cities policy in the Netherlands, Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geograe, 91(2), pp. 197203. KLEINMAN , M. (2000) Include me out? The new politics of place and poverty, Policy Studies, 21(1), pp. 49 61. LAWLESS , P. (2004) Locating and explaining areabased urban initiatives: New Deal for Communities in England, Environment and Planning C, 22(3), pp. 383399. ` LE GALE S , P. and MAWSON , J. (1994) Management innovations in urban policy: lessons from France. Local Government Management Board, Luton. LUPTON , R. (2003) Poverty Street. Bristol: Policy Press. MADANIPOUR, A., CARS , G. and ALLEN , J. (Eds) (1998) Social Exclusion in European Cities: Processes, Experiences and Responses. London: Jessica Kingsley. MARTIN , R. (1998) Regional dimensions of Europes unemployment crisis, in: P. LAWLESS , R. MARTIN and S. HARDY (Eds) Unemployment and Social Exclusion: Landscapes of Labour Inequality, pp. 1148. London: Jessica Kingsley. MASSER , I. and WILLIAMS , R. (Eds) (1988) Learning from Other Countries: The Cross-national Dimension in Urban Policy-making. Norwich: Geobooks. MOULAERT , F., RODRIGUEZ , A. and SWYNGEDOUW , E. (Eds) (2003) The Globalized City: Economic Restructuring and Social Polarization in European Cities. Oxford: Oxford University Press. MURIE , A. and MUSTERD , S. (2004) Social exclusion and opportunity structures in European cities and neighbourhoods, Urban Studies, 41(8), pp. 144459. MURTAGH , B. (2001) The URBAN Community Initiative in Northern Ireland, Policy and Politics, 29(4), pp. 431446. MURTAGH , B. and MC KAY , S. (2003) Evaluating the social effects of the EU URBAN Community Initiative Programme, European Planning Studies, 11(2), pp. 193211. MUSTERD , S. and OSTENDORF , W. (1998) Urban Segregation and the Welfare State. London: Routledge. OATLEY , N. (Ed.) (1998) Cities, Economic Competition and Urban Policy. London: Paul Chapman Publishing. OATLEY , N. (2000) New Labours approach to ageold problems: renewing and revitalising poor neighbourhoodthe National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal, Local Economy, 15(2), pp. 86 97.

2162

JULIET CARPENTER

PARKINSON , M. (1998) Combating Social Exclusion: Lessons from Area-based Programmes in Europe. Bristol: The Policy Press/York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation. PUTNAM , R. (1993) Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. RACO , M. (1999) Assessing community participation in local economic development: lessons for the new urban policy, Political Geography, 19, pp. 573599. RHODES , J., TYLER , P. and BRENNAN , A. (2003) New developments in area-based initiatives in England: the experience of the Single Regeneration Budget, Urban Studies, 40(8), pp. 13991426. SEU (SOCIAL EXCLUSION UNIT ) (1998) Neighbourhood renewal. Cabinet Ofce, London.

SKIFTER ANDERSEN , H. (2002) Can deprived housing areas be revitalised? Efforts against segregation and neighbourhood decay in Denmark and Europe, Urban Studies, 39(4), pp. 767790. STEWART , M. (2001) Area based initiatives and urban policy. Paper presented at the Conference Area-based Initiatives in Contemporary Urban Policy, Copenhagen, May. TAYLOR , M. (1998) Combating the social exclusion of housing estates, Housing Studies, 13, pp. 819832. TAYLOR , M. (2000) Communities in the lead: organisational capacity and social capital, Urban Studies, 37(5/6), pp. 1019 1035. WILLIAMS , R. (1996) European Union Spatial Policy and Planning. London: Paul Chapman.