NEIGHBOURHOOD RESEARCH
AND NEIGHBOURHOOD POLICIES:
ARE THEY RELATED?
Duncan Maclennan
University of St Andrews
OUTLINE
1. KEY QUESTIONS, ARGUMENTS
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6.
THEORETICAL QUESTIONS ON NEIGHBOURHOODS,
EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE
IN PRINCIPLE POLICY INTERESTS
POLICY-MAKING REALITIES: UK AND OTHER
EXPERIENCES
WHAT DOES THIS SAY ABOUT RESEARCH IMPACTS ON
POLICY
FUTURE RESEARCH ISSSUES
1. MY QUESTIONS.
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PRIORS.
IS THERE EVIDENCE ON NE
IS IT EMPIRICAL, QUAL, EVAL,EXPERIENTIAL
WILL IT IMPACT POLICY (existence, design?)
PAPER
HAS RESEARCH IMPROVED?
HAS POLICY EXPANDED, IMPROVED
HAVE IDEAS LED POLICY
CAN WE EXPECT, MEASURE RESEARCH IMPACT
2. REVEALING, REFRESHING
NEIGHBOURHOOD IDEAS
Perspective: applied economics, real pol/econ. Understandings greatly
improved in last two decades for
NEIGHBOURHOODS
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Multiple Function Field Definition
– Fuzzy field definitions ( Galster, HAPs)
– Multiple scales (Suttles)
– Different typologies of places
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Perceptual differences (Downs and Stea)
Joint choices with property (home) choice
– Meanings of home, n’hood (Mallet, Forrest)
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Constraints in choice, selection effects (social too)
2. NEIGHBOURHOOD COMPLEXITIES,
CAPABILITIES
• Multiple Attributes (Lancaster, Quigley, Galster)
– Properties, living and working spaces
– Proximities; neighbours, facilities and wider city
– Public service provision, costs and governance
– Perceived Image, status, reputation
– Patterns of Interactions
• Involving neighbour contact, Impersonal spillovers
• Priced and not priced (externalities)
– Capabilities, institutions of places (resilience) (SEN)
ATTRIBUTES AS LASTING FORM OF CAPITAL, TIME MATTERS AS
MUCH AS SPACE
2. NEIGHBOURHOODS: TIME
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Expectations: of values, interactions?
Endogenous dynamic: ageing, repair
Exogenous dynamic
– Steady-state equilibrium (classic Filtering models)
– Dynamic Equilibrium
OR RE STUDIED NEIGHBOURHOODS
– Unanticipated shocks
– Complex, partly-open systems with non-linear change
– Thresholds, cusps, multiple equilibria (Schelling)
I ASSUME LATTER, PERVASIVE AND LARGELY IGNORED IN
MODELLING, POLICY AND EVALUATION: LIMITS TO
ECONOMETRIC AND POLICY UNDERSTANDINGS;
REPLICABILITY
2 EVIDENCE? : PLACE,
Academic
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Housing Demand , quality outcomes (UK, no)
Residential Attachment (UK, no)
Residential/Neighbourhood satisfactions (Yes)
Social capital studies (yes, limited, JRF
Geographies of disadvantage (Yes, index)
Neighbourhood Change (Gentrificat’n, Soc Estate; weak on general
patterns of change, drivers; unconvincing theory of change)
• Qualitative as much as quantitative research
LOCALISED, PARTIAL, WEAK ON ECONOMICS
2. EVIDENCE: Evaluations
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Community and housing cost
LED literature
Partnerships
Specific area initiatives, Flagships
Specific area projects (Routine)
Programme evaluations (SRB, GEAR) etc
Conceptual frameworks
Never Systematically Reviewed, Positives but Problematic,
Do they consider dynamic, random elements in change, how
replicible?
2. EVIDENCE: N. Effects, Mixed
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Pre school learning
School performance
Training Behaviour
Crime
Employment
Health
Social/Tenure mix
Particular People in particular Kinds of Places? Mixed
conclusions, more to do. The experiental evidence, the
ordinary knowledge of experts, practitioners and politicians
3. TO WHOM DO NEIGHBOURHOOD
OUTCOMES CHOICES MATTER?
For whom are neighbourhood outcomes a policy issue?
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Individuals, quality and choice
Outcomes for the neighbourhood, community
Outcomes for spatial structure, city systems
Wider spillover effects: nation, global
HOW DOE WE CATERGORISE POLICY INTERESTS IN
NEIGHBOURHOODS
3. POLICY AS POVERTY ALLEVIATION
Can be Conceived, Rationalised in different ways
1. REDISTRIBUTIVE Simple sectoral spends
– Is this an effective way to alleviate poverty effects?
– Does it reduce other expenditure claims
(e.g.
housing investment reduces health claims)
– Is policy aimed at the poorest places?
– Are poor spatially concentrated?
3. POLICY AS EFFECTIVE
MANAGEMENT AND GOVERNANCE
2. ALLOCATIVE: Public economics of service
provision/governance
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What are local outcomes desired
Does this need conjoined service delivery, locally
Does ‘local community’ have service say
Are capabilities for resilience, ‘normalcy’ present
EFFICIENT SERVICE ORGANISATION, COST,
GOVERNANCE
3. POLICY AS PLACE
PRODUCTIVITY
3. CREATIVE, space non-neutral, takes longer view
• Juxtaposition, proximity synergies (location or accessibility effects, may
be traded)
– Within the neighbourhood
– Relative to other neighbourhoods
• Wider externalities (spillover effects, eg environment)
• Neighbour Effects (social interaction effects)
• Late start to identifying pathways to effects, causal chanins
TRANSFORMATIVE EFFECTS CAN YOU ANSWER 1 AND 2
WITHOUT CONSIDERING 3? YES
DO NEIGHBOURHOOD EFFECTS MATTER FOR POLICY
MAKING? SHOULD THAT INFLUENCE RESEARCH AGENDA?
4. POLICY-MAKING REALITIES AND
EVIDENCE ROLES
Thinking about place in Policy Has Improved. But does
research progress policy, or vice versa?
• Always a valid question for some researchers
• And for some funders
Is it valid as a metric in REF? ESRC
What does this presuppose about research to policy innovation
system? Incentive
• Is not about private profits
• Involves, usually, expenditure and distrib shift
Policy making may be sometimes evidence influenced but
it is rarely evidence based. It is an inherently ethical,
political process beset by conflicts and tradeoffs. It
involves, usually, Passion as well as Reason. Passion and
reason are not always in Equilibrium, Balance differs over
space and time. So also do political preferences. The same
‘facts’ or findings give different choices in different
settings.
4. UK Policy drives research?
US tradition of strong neighbourhood research. In contrast UK
• Uses until 2000’s US findings in teaching etc, Scant research on
– City structures, factorial ecologies into 1970’s
– Inner Cities research into 1980s weak on n’hoods
– Rejection of ideas as ‘spatial fetishism’
• Welfare state housing into 1980’s emphasis on units, not places;
– BTS and clearance (New Town exception?)
– HAA, GIA, silos
LEFT UK RESEARCH WEAK ON UNDERSTANDING
NEIGHBOURHOODS AND THEIR DYNAMICS
4…..and into 1990’s
1980’s sees start of different thinking (Glasgow)
• Gear, UDCs, some better than others
• Momentum of CBHA’s (cf England)
• Riots in Inner Cities, England
BUT POLICY INVERSION, LIMITED TO
SPENDING DEPARTMENTS; TREASURY SEES
THIS ALL AS DISPLACEMENT, NO
PRODUCTIVITY EFFECTS.EVALUATIONS GIVE
DIFFERENT SENSE
GLOBAL ECONOMY
CAPITAL
MARKET
MACROPOLICY
SOCIAL
SEC
Technology
Deregulation
LABOUR
MARKET
Incomes, Jobs, Inequalities
HOUSING
SYSTEM
CITY
N'HOOD
EFFECTS
NEIGHBOURHOODS
4……..and at the start of the major
policy expansion…
By mid-1990’s
• SPI, Scotland, Carley in England
• But no coherent theory of change, little evid
• Evaluations chart programmes
• Social exclusion discussion banned until 1996
• Public admin still in silos as Blair starts; the multiple zones
• JRF and ESRC progs postdate major shift; BUT LIMITED EMPIRICAL
WORK ON N’HOODS
• SEU was critical and Delphi technique, attitudes outweigh data
IMAGINATIVE BUT UNRESEARCHED THIRD WAY THINKING
PAVED BASIS FOR MAJOR PROGRAMMES. NEIGHBOURHOOD
EFFECTS STEMS FROM THIS. PROGS HAD MAJOR FINDINGS
INTERNATIONALLY TRANSMITTED VIA WEB ETC
BOTTOMS UP : ENDOGENOUS CHANGE
EXTERNAL
STABILITY.
AGILITY
CREATIVITY
SECTORS
CITY
PLACE
NEIGHBOURHOOD
LOCAL
EFFECTS
SOCIAL CAPITAL
EMPOWERS
4. HOW DID EVIDENCE COUNT?
Same evidence, sorts of Evidence, in Aus/Can
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Policy action requires one level with resources
Creating national views from below, cf UK
Policy and practice innovation inversions
Who are research targets, who wants it?
Different spatial expertise of top levels
Different policy research communities
Not simple split politics, bureaucracy to shape take -
4. AN ESSENTIALLY
PROCESS
POLITICAL
Politics is
• All parties and parliament, not just govt
• Includes politicians, press and policy advisers
• Hierarchies of Departments, Ministers
– Treasury and PM Office, associated Policy Units
– Major versus minor spending ministries (housing versus
infrastructure?)
DIFFERENT INFORMATION CHANNELS TO THESE
ACTORS, HAVE DIFFERENT COSTS AND RISKS,
SOME INHERENTLY POLITICAL
4. BUREAUS HAVE OWN OBJECTIVES
Within Departments, Status Hierarchy
• Minister’s Office, Special Advisers (blocked?)
• Department Management Group
• Policy Directors
• Research Divisions (ESRC Linkage?)
STAYING OUT OF THE PRECIPICE OF POLITICS
DIFFICULT, FALLING INTO IT RAISES RETURNS
AND RISKS OF MAKING AN IMPACT
5. RESEARCH IMPACT, THE REF
AND THE ESRC
Making an Impact on neighbourhood policy
• Research quality helps may be even necessary,never sufficient
• The interaction with the bureaucracy, can be helpful, is filtered for
convenience, image
• Interaction with politics has high returns, more direct, requires better
messaging
Academics can control the quality, message, range and persistence of
communications; impact tests their skill as ‘politicians’ rather than as
researchers. HEFCE and ESRC now confusing the two. What strategy
for neighbourhood effects research findings?
6. NEIGHBOURHOODS RESEARCH
PRIORITIES
• NE’s as the Higgs-Boson search in soc science? Too
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expensive to do properly, too unclear to message easily
What can be messaged?
AND NOW
The new value of accessibility and proximity
The Big Society
Localism, and the demise of community and
neighbourhood?