Neighbourhood Effects: Can we measure them and does it matter?

Renewed interest in disadvantaged neighbourhoods is generating increasing research activity. Current work includes qualitative community studies and quantitative investigations of area effects on individual outcomes. This paper criticises the contribution of area effects research to date. Methodological and data constraints mean that quantitative studies often operationalise a weak conception of neighbourhood that does not reflect the understanding gained from qualitative work. These constraints present a barrier to testing specific theories that might usefully inform policy, while exaggerated claims are made about the policy relevance of more generic work. The paper concludes that area effects should be accorded less significance in the broad debate on area-based policy. Multi-disciplinary work is needed to develop studies that can influence the design of specific programmes.neighbourhoodarea effects

Variations on a middle class theme: English primary schools in socially advantaged contexts

Multiple contexts interact to position any school on a spectrum from cumulatively advantaged to cumulatively disadvantaged. This article discusses a study of the contextual advantages and disadvantages experienced by primary schools in the south east of England, concentrating especially on schools in the least deprived 5% of schools nationally. The research highlights the central influence of advantaged socioeconomic contexts on day‐to‐day school processes and on the related perspectives and beliefs of head teachers as well as variations on this theme related to other external and internal contextual variables. It illustrates that England’s most socially advantaged primary schools are likely to have much in common including a high level of parent involvement, a strong focus on student learning and progress, considerable ability to raise funds, very good reputations and only a handful of students with serious learning or behavioural problems. They also have in common middle class forms of transience and profiles of special needs. The article concludes that while contextual variations amongst socially advantaged schools do exist and are talked up by head teachers, they usually have an impact that can be managed

Mixed communities: a new approach to spatially concentrated poverty in England.

This article examines the adoption, by the New Labour government, of a mixed communities approach to the renewal of disadvantaged neighbourhoods in England. It argues that while there are continuities with previous policy, the new approach represents a more neoliberal policy turn in three respects: its identification of concentrated poverty as the problem; its faith in market-led regeneration; and its alignment with a new urban policy agenda in which cities are gentrified and remodelled as sites for capital accumulation through entrepreneurial local governance. The article then draws on evidence from the early phases of the evaluation of the mixed community demonstration projects to explore how the new policy approach is playing out at a local level, where it is layered upon existing policies, politics and institutional relationships. Tensions between neighbourhood and strategic interests, community and capital are evident as the local projects attempt neighbourhood transformation, while seeking to protect the rights and interests of existing residents. Extensive community consultation efforts run parallel with emergent governance structures, in which local state and capital interests combine and communities may effectively be disempowered. Policies and structures are still evolving and it is not yet entirely clear how these tensions will be resolved, especially in the light of a collapsing housing market, increased poverty and demand for affordable housing, and a shortage of private investment.

Is Targeting Deprived Areas an Effective Means to Reach Poor People? An assessment of one rationale for area-based funding programmes

Area-based programmes have long been a feature of urban policy in the UK. One rationale is that they are an effective means to target poor people. Area deprivation indices are used to identify areas for targeting. This paper reviews the different results produced by these indices. It then examines the effectiveness of the current Index of Multiple Deprivation in targeting the poor, demonstrating that area targeting using the IMD 2000 is a more complete way of reaching the poor than has been claimed by opponents of area-based targeting in the past. However, it is more effective in reaching some sub-groups, particularly children, than others, and is also relatively inefficient. There is a trade off between efficiency and completeness. The use of area targeting should depend on the type of intervention, the costs and benefits of producing complex targeting mechanisms, and the particular balance between completeness and efficiency in each case.area targeting, deprivation, area-based initiatives, neighbourhoods

Are there neighbourhood effects on teenage parenthood in the UK, and does it matter for policy? A review of theory and evidence

This paper is a forerunner to an empirical study of neighbourhood effects on teenage parenthood using the British Cohort Study (BCS70). It reviews evidence for the existence of such effects within the quantitative 'neighbourhood effects' literature. It also draws on the wider literature on teenage parenthood to identify three explanatory frameworks for the phenomenon (opportunity costs, differential values and social networks), and to examine the qualitative and quantitative evidence that these mechanisms vary over space in ways that create distinctive 'place effects' at different spatial scales. We conclude that while there is good reason to believe that neighbourhood and wider area influences might be associated with planned or unplanned teenage pregnancies and with the propensity to continue to parenthood, statistical evidence is mixed, and relatively sparse for the UK. Policy makers need to draw on the wider body of literature, including qualitative studies and practitioner knowledge as well as 'hard' proof of neighbourhood effects. Finally we consider implications for policy. We critically interrogate the notion that area effects and area-based policies are necessarily related and instead offer some more specific conclusions as to what the evidence implies (and does not imply) for the purpose and design of policy interventions.neighbourhood, neighbourhood effects, area effects, teenage parenthood

The local government cuts in London: Councils have done a good job in absorbing cuts so far, but they will struggle to take any more without front line services being seriously affected

This week the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has announced another round of cuts for local government. Ruth Lupton argues that councils in London have done a good job in absorbing cuts so far, but that they will struggle to take any more without front line services being seriously affected

Assessing Labour’s record: Many of the socio-economic outcomes Labour targeted improved, but it did not achieve all of its ambitious vision

With the 2013 Spending Review now behind us and political parties starting to shape up their policies for the next election, Ruth Lupton assesses Labour’s social policy record between 1997-2010 and the legacy that it left for the Coalition. After a very detailed review of the evidence, compiled by CASE, we cannot conclude that Labour spent a lot and achieved nothing, nor that its big expansion of public spending before the recession caused the fiscal crisi

A Tale of Two Cities? London’s economic success does not seem to have translated into lower rates of poverty or inequality

Ruth Lupton and colleagues at LSE’s Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) have recently published a research report examining changing prosperity, poverty and inequality in London during the 2000s. There was good news and bad news – here she sets out some of the main findings