Disadvantaged by where you live?: Neighbourhood governance in contemporary urban policy

Disadvantaged by where you live? distils lessons from work on neighbourhoods carried out within the Cities Research Centre of the University of the West of England over the past seven years. It offers a major contribution to academic debates on the neighbourhood both as a sphere of governance and as a point of public service delivery under New Labour since 1997.

The book explores how ‘the neighbourhood’ has been used in policy in the UK; what the ‘appropriate contribution’ of neighbourhood governance is and how this relates to concepts of multi-level governance; the tensions that are visible at the neighbourhood level and what this tells us about wider governance issues.

The book explores and reflects on the notion of neighbourhood governance from a variety of perspectives that reflect the unique depth and breadth of the Centre’s research programme. Neighbourhood governance is examined in relation to: multi-level governance and city-regions; local government; mainstreaming; cross-national differences in neighbourhood policy; community and civil society; diversity; different conceptions of democracy; and, evaluation and learning. In doing so, the book identifies useful conceptual tools for analysing the present and future contribution of policy to neighbourhoods.