How can we tackle persistent poverty in deprived neighborhoods? : lessons from the US and the UK

Abstract

Since the late 1980s, there has been a broad consensus in the US and the UK that the persistent concentration of poverty in deprived neighborhoods results in negative area effects on local residents, including low aspirations and benefit dependency cultures. In order to transform the prospects of deprived neighborhoods, the governments in the two countries launched the most ambitious community revitalization programs. In the US, the Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere (HOPE VI) program (1993-2010) was started to transform the nation's worst public housing and in the UK, the New Deal for Communities (NDC) program (1998-2008) was launched to tackle multiple deprivations in the poorest neighborhoods in England. This research attempts to provide useful insights into addressing the problems of deprived neighborhoods in the US and the UK, exploring the HOPE VI and the NDC programs. In order to develop a conceptual framework that delineates the rationale for HOPE VI and NDC, the assumptions and theories around the problems of deprived neighborhoods are reviewed. It then analyses the evidence from existing research on HOPE VI and NDC including academic literature and policy documents to measure the outcomes. It also draws on information from interviews with academics and researchers to elicit their views on both programs. This research finds that on the basis of similar assumptions and theories to identify the causes of problems in deprived neighborhoods, the US and the UK governments took different approaches: 'neighborhood transformation' in HOPE VI and 'neighborhood improvement' in NDC. These different approaches were due to fundamental differences in social efforts designed to promote the basic physical and material well-being of people in need. However, it has been observed that the UK government has adopted the US market driven approach and community revitalization policies in the two countries are actually converging and share a common trajectory of change.