Rethinking the purpose of community empowerment in neighbourhood regeneration: The need for policy clarity

Louise Lawson and Ade Kearns

Local Economy, 2014, vol. 29, issue 1-2, 65-81

Abstract: Community empowerment is a core element of area regeneration policy in the UK. In this article we question whose purpose the policy goal of community empowerment serves by examining the policy from three ‘actor’ perspectives in a neighbourhood regeneration setting: the Housing Association, a campaign group that became a Registered Tenants Organisation and residents living in the area. Using a model of community empowerment developed, we conclude that the ‘wider community’ was not empowered by the processes but that community empowerment was used by other parties to legitimate their aims. We make three conclusions in relation to: the relevance of community empowerment alongside other objectives; policy oversight and regulation; and, the relationship between community empowerment and representative democratic structures.

Keywords: community; consultation; empowerment; neighbourhood; regeneration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0269094213519307 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:loceco:v:29:y:2014:i:1-2:p:65-81

DOI: 10.1177/0269094213519307

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Local Economy from London South Bank University
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().