Blackwell Reference Online

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Urban policy actively shapes the ways in which people live in cities. As well as reflecting contemporary understandings of the role of cities in economic and social development, it also helps to create those understandings. Definitions of urban policy are elusive in part because the term appears so self-explanatory. It seems to be no more and no less than the sum of those policies that are intended to help cities or those living in them. Unfortunately, however, this commonsense approach is ultimately not very helpful – since most of us now live in urban areas of one sort or another, almost all public policy might be deemed to be urban policy. Assessing quite why one particular form of policy intervention attracts the soubriquet “urban” while another does not is more difficult than at first appears. Although there is a superficial continuity in the emphasis on “urban areas” rather than particular welfare client groups, the definition of the “urban” on which policy attention is focused has itself varied significantly, even if this has rarely been acknowledged by those making or implementing the policies. The arrival of urban policy as a form of social policy in its own right (rather than an offshoot of urban planning or housing) can be located in the specific circumstances of the US in the 1960s, in the context of the “War on Poverty” and the political demands of the increasingly ... log in or subscribe to read full text