Urban Social Policy Research Articles

Context Determines Content: Quantum Physics as a Framework for `Wholeness' in Urban Transformation

We live in a divided world dominated by a fragmentary worldview that treats the wholeness of the human family, urban environments and social reality as inherently discrete, distanced and disconnected. This fragmentary perspective, emerging from Greek dualism and fuelled by the Newtonian mechanical view of the world with its Cartesian split of either/or understanding of reality, does not lead to wholeness. Almost all discussion of urban social policies emerges from a context of fragmented thinking. Drawing from quantum physics, this paper presents a theoretical framework, a new `context' for understanding urban environments and the implementing of programmes of urban transformation, including faith-based programmes. The paper examines examples of effective change agents who have made a difference in people's lives. It culminates with an analysis of the broken window theory and how the differences in approaches—fragmentation or wholeness—generate different results. The critical point is in recognising the energy patterns and operative attractor fields from which emerge negative or positive patterns of behaviour.

Urban Policy in the New Scotland: The Role of Social Inclusion Partnerships

This paper seeks to address a number of important questions that arise from contemporary urban policy developments within Scotland. First, how far the recent and developing urban policies, most noticeably Social Inclusion Partnerships, of the Scottish Executive are influenced by or diverge from the strategies pursued by previous Conservative and Labour governments. Secondly, how far urban social policy, in a Scottish context, continues to be characterised by discourses of area/community pathology. In order to contextualise these issues, the paper will begin with a brief discussion of New Labour's general approach to ‘urban issues’ before concentrating on a case study of the Greater Pollok Social Inclusion Partnership. This will enable an examination of the extent to which ‘community involvement’ under New Labour's social inclusion partnership initiative is markedly different from recent Conservative governments' urban policies in Scotland.

Culture, Class and Urban Policy: Reconsidering Equality

This paper considers the emerging policy agenda for urban–social renewal in relation to academic debates about equality and difference. Signalling problems with prevailing political and geographical approaches to class, the possibilities offered by a poststructuralist engagement with issues of equality are discussed. Policies for social regeneration and inclusion are analysed with regard to their approach to working–class cultures and are argued to be reductive and contradictory in core respects. More progressive and integrated understandings of class–cultural relations, such as those presented in the work of Nancy Fraser and Pierre Bourdieu, are identified as necessary to a meaningful concept of social justice for contemporary urban social policy.

Aktuelle Aufgaben der Städtebaugesetzgebung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland

From 1990 to 1998, German Federal Planning Law was challenged by the political changes in Eastern Europe and German reunification. Within this context, special arrangements had to be established, some of which have now become permanent features of federal planning law. In addition, a federal natural conservation act has been issued and the National Environmental Policy Act has been harmonized with EU law. Currently, legal regulation of building activities in open land, location of radio masts, and reform of the federal zoning ordinance are under discussion. Future tasks will include development policy, urban social policy, urban redevelopment policy, and appropriate legal planning instruments for urban redevelopment.

The issues of translation, transferability and transfer of social policies: French and British 'urban social policy': Finding common ground for comparison?

While international comparative studies of social polices is a well-established and fairly long-standing branch of social science (at least since the post-war development of the various configurations of the so called 'Welfare State' in Europe), there has clearly been a renewed surge of interest for this question in the past ten to fifteen years, a fact perhaps not unrealated to the institutional trend of 'European integration'. The resulting literature has thus become a successful and thriving sub-species within policy studies, in which disciplinary research is often subordinated to, and geared towards, the search for transferable 'good practice'. Yet be it for scientific or political and administrative purposes - 'policy transfer' - this research field seems to be riven both by doubt about the sheer relevance of and the the real scope for international comparison on the one hand, and on the other hand by a now long-drawn-out debate about the feasability of effective policy-transfers. The principal obstacles for international comparison, given the near-absence of a common international 'metalanguage' to describe and analyse polices in shared terms, would appear to be specific problems posed by the translation and description of 'foreign' social policies. Moreover, social policies themselves are often said to be too idiosyncratic and typical of each country to be adequately described, let alone really understood and transferred by foreign observers, analysts and policy-makers. Social policies are thus generally seen as differing radically from one national 'context' to another, and these 'contexts' themselves are often described, very deterministically it seems, as totally coherent and cohesive ' systems '. Against this dominant 'systemic' vision of national social policies so enbedded in their 'cultural' context that are barely translatable, hardly comparable, and utterly untransferrable, this paper argues that by choosing to analyse national sets of social policies into ' functional areas ' and further into (more or less) discrete functions, it is quite possible to develop an approach whereby it becomes manifest that structural resemblances between societies give occasion to homothetic functions or sets of functions. This general point is illustrated by the particular example of 'urban social policies' in France (' politique de la ville ') and Great Britian ('inner-city policy'). This is a policy area in which the institutional contexts are generally recognized to vary considerably between the two countries, but in which similar devices have been put in place to counter the adverse affects of the 'urban crisis' affecting France and Britain alike since the mid-sixties. Indeed, a recent comparative study of some of the lastest urban social policy programmes in both countries was able to conclude that not only was there a real convergence on policy objectives, but moreover that 'the actual measures available to take action differ little on either side of the Channel, and similarities are more striking than the differences' (Booth, Green and Paris 1997).

The New Urban Left: Parties Without Actors

One of the hallmarks of late political modernity may be that grassroots groups and urban social movements are fixed in increasingly distal relations with left of center parties. We examine the history of these relations in the city of Montreal, where there has been an historic progression from left parties, with significant constituencies, to parties without local actors. The 1994 municipal election in Montreal is reviewed in this light. Our findings indicate, however, that urban movements have developed a ‘transfunctionality’. This places them in a conflict‐laden stance to urban social policy, by signaling that which has been excluded from that relationship, through the arbitrariness of the service function they have taken on. These transformations have ushered them away from protest activities and towards a politics of everyday life (needs satisfactions, well‐being), increasing their base constituencies, while lowering their ideological and rhetorical positions. Grassroots groups are bringing an unaccustomed political diversity into the discourse of the traditional and new urban left. These are not programmatic rehearsals, in search of a reworked or revised totality, but rather represent strategically placed claims to appropriate greater political, social and cultural spaces around issues of mutuality, self‐help and effective local powerUne les caractéristiques de la modernité politique récente est peut‐être que les groupes populaires et les mouvements sociaux urbains sont immobilisés dans des relations de plus en plus éloignées des partis de centre‐gauche. Nous examinons l'histoire de ces relations dans la ville de Montréal, où il y a eu une progression historique des partis de gauche, avec des circonscriptions électorales considérables, vers des partis sans participants locaux. Les élections municipales de 1994 à Montréal sont reconsidérées sous cet angle. Nos conclusions indiquent, cependant, que les mouvements urbains ont développé une ‘transfonctionnalité’. Ceci les place dans une position de conflit par rapport aux politiques sociales urbaines, en indiquant ce qui a été exclus de cette relation par l'arbitraire des fonctions de service qu'ils ont adoptées. Ces transformations les ont éloignés des activités de protestation et rapprochés des politiques de la vie de tous les jours (satisfactions des besoins, bien‐être), augmentant leurs circonscription électorale de base et en même temps abaissant leurs positions idéologique et rhétorique. Les groupes populaires apportent une diversité politique inhabituelle au discours de la gauche traditionnelle et de la nouvelle gauche urbaine. Ce ne sont pas des répétitions programmatiques cherchant une totalité remodelée ou révisée mais représentent plutôt des demandes stratégiques pour approprier plus d'espaces politiques, sociaux et culturels quant aux questions de réciprocité, d'efforts personnels et de pouvoir local efficace.

URBAN SOCIAL POLICY IN POOR COUNTRIES: THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL DIRECTIONS

This review essay is the third of three about comparative urban social policy in poor nations. It is selective in scope and confined to policy in the realms of health, education, and housing. The paper aims to identify key literatures that might interest urbanists in general, and urban geographers, planners, and policy analysts in particular. The first essay outlined emerging issues in the social policy circles of poor countries (Scarpaci, 1993). A second paper that identified strategies and trends in the Third World metropolis followed (Scarpaci, 1995). This final review aims to bring some closure to this series by identifying novel approaches to method and theory that appeared in the literature of the mid-1990s.

La politique de la ville en France

Urban Policy in France Urban policy appeared for the first time in France in the seventies to remedy urban and social difficulties in deprived districts. It is still a recent concept in this country. Initially approached from an experimental angle, it progressively became a mainstream public policy. It is nonetheless based upon prerequisites such as transversal ity, globality, territorialisation, mobilisation of inhabitants which is its originality. Today it has become an important research area to analyse the evolution of French society, and in particular the role of the State. The history of urban policy can be regrouped into three periods. The first period covers the seventies and corresponds to the genesis of this urban social development policy. The main issue at the time was the degradation of vast social housing estates built after the war. It resulted in operations known as «Habitat and social life » which established the first principles for this type of policy. The second period, the coming of age of this policy, coincided with an important political change in France with the election in 1981 of a socialist president (François Mitterrand). 1981 was also the year of the first urban riots in France (at «Les Minguettes », a district of the Lyon conurbation). During this decade a number of schemes were developed which aimed at the Social Development of Districts («DSQ » or «Développement Social des Quartiers ») through crime prevention, social and vocational integration of young people, urban regeneration, cultural development, and education. The third period, that of of maturity, covers the nineties. The urban policy is based on a single procedure, the «Contrat de Ville » whose objective is to offer a global framework for intervention. The contracts signed between local authorities (communes or groups of communes) and public agencies go beyond the district, where the symptoms are, to deal with the issues at the level of the town or the conurbation, considered to be more relevant. A central question of urban policy is to establish «geographical priorities ». During the eighties, more than 400 districts were «classified » as DSQs, today more than 200 towns are in «con¬ trat de ville », which represents some 1 3 000 districts. This infla¬ tion which means that any french town of more than 200 000 inhabitants is eligible is in contradiction with the notion of positive discrimination which represents a foundation of this policy. Also, there are different opinions as to what the main aim of urban policy should be (is it a global development policy or a purely social one ?), its objectives (i.e. the possible strategies to implement) and on the methods used (the weight of urban inter¬ ventions leads to neglect of the social dimension). The urban policy puts into question the evolution of the State which is led to better territorialise its action and to act as an «animator ». Nonetheless, the quest for bringing in the participa¬ tion of the inhabitants has failed. Whereas the deepening of local democracy was one of the strong expectations of this policy, today it's rather an impression of defiance towards practitioners, voluntary workers and voluntary organisations which prevails.

Urban social policy and poverty reduction

The paper describes the differences in the ways that social and economic policy perceive poverty and its underlying causes, and thus differences in how they define it, measure it and institute mechanisms to reduce it. It also highlights the many dimensions of poverty that economic policy ignores and considers the constraints that limit the effectiveness of current poverty reduction strategies.

Urban social policy and poverty reduction

The paper describes the differences in the ways that social and economic policy perceive poverty and its underlying causes, and thus differences in how they define it, measure it and institute mechanisms to reduce it. It also highlights the many dimensions of poverty that economic policy ignores and considers the constraints that limit the effectiveness of current poverty reduction strategies.

Urban poverty and social welfare policy in the united states: an undergraduate research/training programme

Abstract A new, interdisciplinary, research and training programme focusing on urban poverty and social welfare policy in the USA has been established recently at UCLA. This paper describes the structure and organisation of the programme, assesses student reactions and experiences and discusses the importance of major research universities encouraging faculty to develop training of this type.

A Comprehensive Approach to Urban Renewal: The Israeli Experience

ABSTRACT: This article examines the implementation shortcomings of Israel's Project Renewal the major social welfare and urban renewal program of the Begin governments (1977–1984). Despite a government decision to have a unified comprehensive program, the process of implementation resulted in at least three separate and independent programs. Many modern nation states, including the United States, have implemented urban renewal and social welfare policies designed to deal with spatially based social inequality. The Israeli effort shares with them the participation of several autonomous agencies. The emphasis, therefore, focuses on those factors that either facilitate or constrain the coordination of the inputs of two or more separate agencies in policy formulation and service delivery. The findings should lend themselves to a comparison of how the political institutions of different countries affect the implementation of similar policy efforts. These findings suggest that the dichotomy between unitary and federal systems explains less about the causes of shortcomings in policy implementation than do other variables Each country has its own political institutions and variables that help to explain policy implementation There is an additional lesson for public policy which this study underscores. Regardless of the formal structure of government, proposals to achieve greater coordination in the formulation and implementation of national and urban policies assume incorrectly that there is either the existing capacity or the ability to impose coordination, or that all participants wild “naturally” agree to coordinate. Reality was otherwise in the case of Project Renewal in Israel, as it was in similar programs in the United States including OEO and Model Cities

Maternal Politics: the Principles and Practice of Maternity Care in Eighteenth-Century Hamburg

This article traces the development of publicly financed maternity care in Hamburg and places that development firmly within the context of urban social structure and social policy. Such maternity care evolved in late seventeenth- century Hamburg as a pragmatic response to an internal problem plaguing several municipal institutions, i.e., how to care for pregnant inmates. Gradually the program expanded to include poor, homeless, or transient women who were able to call on no other form of assistance or charity. The first true Lying-In Ward in Hamburg was established by the General Poor Relief in 1796. Crucial issues of population policy (especially the control of aliens) and the regulation of the labor market influenced the conditions under which certain groups of women received (or did not receive) free lying-in.

Urban Social Policy and the Problems of Family Life: The Use of an Extended Diary Method to Inform Decision Analysis

Urban Social Policy and the Problems of Family Life: The Use of an Extended Diary Method to Inform Decision Analysis

Subjective Social Indicators and Urban Social Policy

Social indicators are now an important component of policy making at all scales. Conventional, ‘objective’ indicators are persistently hampered, however, by problems connected with weighting and synthesizing data. Subjective indicators, based on measures of people’s hopes, frustrations, satisfactions and sense of well-being, offer a potentially more sensitive yardstick of personal and community well-being. This note seeks to clarify the issues, problems and potential associated with the use of such indicators in the context of urban and regional planning, with particular emphasis on the extent to which the information conveyed by subjective indicators may either complement or duplicate information derived from conventional indicators. The nature of subjective indicators is outlined, and the case for using subjective indicators in formulating urban social policy is presented. Their use in studies of urban welfare is reviewed, and an evaluation is given of the practical problems involved in using subjective indicators.

Simulation in planning urban social policy

Simulation in planning urban social policy

The View from Below: Urban Politics and Social Policy.

The View from Below: Urban Politics and Social Policy.

The view from below: Urban Politics and Social Policy. Edited by Susan and Norman Fainstein. Little, Brown and Company, 24 Beacon Street, Boston 02106, 1972. 360 pp.

The view from below: Urban Politics and Social Policy. Edited by Susan and Norman Fainstein. Little, Brown and Company, 24 Beacon Street, Boston 02106, 1972. 360 pp.

Review of Mental health and urban social policy and Culture change, mental health, and poverty.

Review of Mental health and urban social policy and Culture change, mental health, and poverty.

Book Review: Urban Planning and Social Policy, edited by Bernard J. Frieden and Robert Morris, Basic Books, 1968, pp. xvii + 459, $10

Book Review: Urban Planning and Social Policy, edited by Bernard J. Frieden and Robert Morris, Basic Books, 1968, pp. xvii + 459, $10