Changing Places, Changing Lives: assessing the Impact of Housing Association Regeneration

The Changing Places, Changing Lives research into L&Q’s ‘community impact’ demonstrates the unique position of housing associations as social landlords. It examines seven neighbourhoods, which span two periods in urban governance: the area-based initiatives of the last Labour government, which aimed to regenerate and ‘renew’ specific neighbourhoods characterised by large swathes of public housing; and the
current housing policy of the coalition government, which places an emphasis on decentralisation and localism (rather than centralised spatial strategies). With the demise of regeneration monies, such as the Single Regeneration Budget and New Deal for Communities, and the considerable cuts to the budgets of local authority services, the ability of social landlords to attract mobile capital, nurture indigenous capacity and talent and provide community resources at this time is particularly significant as they shape urban neighbourhoods.