Housing and Communities

Disconnected Citizens: Is Community Empowerment the Solution?

Disconnected Citizens: Is Community Empowerment the Solution?

Jessica Prendergrast

Community empowerment is a defining agenda of the Brown Government, and likely to feature heavily in the manifestos of all the three main parties at the next election. The Communities and Local Government White Paper on the same topic, which is due for launch in July 2008, is therefore eagerly anticipated, by the local government community at least. In this context, this essay discusses how, despite community empowerment being presented as a panacea for many social ills, the evidence in relation to some outcomes is relatively patchy.

Should the Green Belt be preserved?

Should the Green Belt be preserved?

Stephen Evans

Average house prices have doubled in the last decade. Demand for housing has outstripped supply to such an extent that housing has become a national policy priority for the Brown government, as well as a staple topic of conversation at dinner parties.

Giving something back: Business, volunteering and healthy communities

Giving something back: Business, volunteering and healthy communities

Philip Collins and Moussa Haddad

In this publication, all parties consider the role that government and business can play in pushing forward employee volunteering. The proposals put forward include: a less interventionist government approach, to allow the business and voluntary sectors to reach their own solutions; government investment in the support infrastructure and information provision surrounding volunteering; raising the status of volunteering through advertising, awards and certificates; and a call for greater flexibility in work to make it easier to combine paid employment with voluntary work.

Permission to engage?

Permission to engage?

Paul Richards

In this essay, published in 2004, Paul Richards observes that voter disengagement, particularly among the urban working class, is effectively bringing about the reversal of the Reform Acts.

The future of private renting in the UK

The future of private renting in the UK

Michael Ball

This report argues that the growth of the privately rented sector over the previous fifteen years has been a major success and that success has been driven primarily by market forces.

Website by: Commotion