Area effects: what do they mean for British housing and regeneration policy?

Abstract

This paper aims to clarify the research agenda and to tease out the policy implications of 'area effects' for British housing policy, particularly with respect to policies for the regeneration of deprived housing areas. After a review of the growing interest in area effects in current policy, the paper goes on to examine the existing research evidence on area effects, concluding that they are potentially important in themselves as a source of disadvantage. The paper then goes on to consider the policy implications of area effects and suggests that accepting them offers a strong challenge to conventional thinking about area regeneration and that less inward-looking policy programmes need to be developed. The paper concludes that the role of area effects suggests a renewed centrality of many aspects of housing policy in combating social exclusion.