Search results

This paper analyses migrations at neighbourhood level in relation to the persistence of deprived neighbourhoods. The research is based on a sample of deprived neighbourhoods located in the inner-cities of Brussels and six Flemish cities. Their migration pattern was analysed and compared to a sample of middle-class neighbourhoods which are also located in the inner city. More than one million migration movements covering a period of 14 years (1986-1999) were analysed according to age, nationality and family composition. This was the first time that data of this kind were available for research in Belgium. The main findings hint at a migration pattern that perpetuates deprived neighbourhoods. Residents of these neighbourhoods move more often and over a shorter distance then their counterparts in the reference neighbourhoods. Residents of a deprived neighbourhood also tend to move to another deprived neighbourhood. A clear difference is noted between the Belgian population and migrant groups such as Moroccans and Turks. Groups that are weaker from a socio-economic perspective tend to stay much more within the circuit of deprived neighbour-hoods, hereby perpetuating their existence. We also noted that once their economic situation has improved, the strongest households move out of the neighbourhood, leaving the rest of the population ‘trapped‘ behind. The article closes with a set of policy recommendations.

Studies have suggested that entrepreneurship is a key mechanism for rejuvenating and facilitating economic growth in deprived areas. To provide further understanding of the persistently low entrepreneurial intentions found in deprived areas this chapter identifies key mechanisms and theoretical frameworks that link the formation of appropriate human capital to the prevailing environment, and that influences may flow in both directions. This contributes to the existing literature to provide a fuller understanding of interest to policy-makers of why past interventions have struggled to boost entrepreneurial intentions and where new interventions may be most effective in generating more positive entrepreneurial intentions in deprived areas.

The aim of this paper is to empirically investigate whether social contacts can mediate the way in which current unemployment impacts future unemployment.

We use 2006–2017 data from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey and a dynamic random-effects model to describe the evolution of individual unemployment status over time.

Once controlled for the local context where individuals live and create friendships, we find that above-average social contacts reduce unemployment persistence. However, social contacts seem to be slightly less effective in deprived neighborhoods. These findings are consistent with the idea that individuals obtain information about job opportunities through a network of social contacts, and unemployment may lead to a decay of social capital, making it more difficult to find employment in future periods. Our results also show that neighborhood deprivation increases individual unemployment risk, while above-average neighborhood cohesion reduces the probability of unemployment in deprived neighborhoods.

Although many studies have been published on unemployment persistence, to the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first study quantifying the impact of social contacts on unemployment persistence. The study also offers fresh empirical evidence on the impact of neighborhood characteristics on unemployment risk.

To evaluate critically whether under a market system, monetary exchange is always and everywhere based on profit‐seeking behaviour, this article examines cash‐in‐hand work, a form of activity conventionally conceptualised as low paid employment heavily imbued with profit motivations on the part of both the consumer and supplier. Reporting data gathered through structured face‐to‐face interviews with 511 households in affluent and deprived neighbourhoods in two English cities, this article reveals that although most cash‐in‐hand work conducted by people living in affluent suburbs is conducted under social relations akin to employment for profit‐motivated purposes, the vast majority of cash‐in‐hand work in deprived neighbourhoods is undertaken by and for kin, neighbours and friends for a range of cooperative reasons under social relations more akin to unpaid community exchange. Given this heterogeneity of cash‐in‐hand work, this article questions whether seeking its eradication through more stringent regulations is the appropriate policy response, especially in deprived neighbourhoods.

This study explored the neighbourhood‐level personal safety concerns experienced by older people living in socioeconomically deprived communities in South Wales. While there is a wealth of criminological literature focusing on whether older people experience high levels of fear of crime, much of it conflicting in its conclusions, such studies tell us little about the social and physical cues for feelings of fear that are evoked in older people on a community level. To provide a richer understanding of these issues the study adopted a predominantly qualitative approach to identify community characteristics that shaped older people's views of personal safety. This was supplemented by quantitative data regarding their actual experiences of crime. The main finding was that personal safety concerns were overwhelmingly related to the social connotations of specific community locations, such as those associated with the presence and behaviour of perceived 'undesirable others', rather than specific locations themselves or their physical characteristics. This raises questions and challenges about the development of appropriate and effective crime and fear reduction strategies that enable older people to feel safer in their communities, and so facilitate their community engagement and social inclusion.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse urban transformation as a tourism resource. Tourism is undeniably a powerful motor for urban transformation but in return, urban transformation can represent a resource for actors related to tourism. More precisely this paper focuses on one major transformation of modern cities: gentrification.

The central hypothesis of this paper is that gentrification accompanies tourism, but that gentrification itself may also become an object of the tourist gaze. The paper focuses on local guides and small touristic entrepreneurs in order to identify the tensions that might arise. The presentation of two guided tours – “Subculture Brixton Nightlife Tour” and “Where Brooklyn At?” – will enable us to explore how the gentrification of Brixton (London) and Brooklyn (New York) may be used as a tourism resource for local private entrepreneurs.

Results presented here are based on ethnographic methods such as observation as well as content analysis and semi-directive interviews. Mobilising the historical concept of “slumming”, this paper proposes an extended conceptual framework, “neo-slumming”, to analyse evolving tourism practices in modern cities, practices that are considered here as tourism’s new frontiers.

However, as tourism transforms cities, the process itself is now of interest to tourists and thus becomes a resource for sector businesses (Naef, 2018). Yet studies about the touristification of urban transformation are still quite rare. This analysis aims to fill this gap by looking at the way a process, such as some spectacular, rapid or radical transformation of the urban fabric, can become a touristic resource associated with specific narratives and representations. In this context, the tourist gaze (Urry, 2002) is directed on a resource characterised by its ongoing change.

The purpose of this paper is to employ innovative methods to examine the associations between personal wellbeing, self-rated health and various aspects of social capital within a socio-economically disadvantaged town in northern England.

A survey was developed and administered with input from local stakeholders (including residents), using a participatory action research (PAR) approach. In total, 11 lay interviewers were trained to pilot and deliver the final survey, which was completed either in person or online. In total, 233 valid surveys were returned.

Respondents were aged between 17 and 87 years (mean 47.3, SD 17.4), 65.7 per cent were female and 46.2 per cent identified themselves as having a longstanding illness, disability or infirmity. Overall, respondents reported lower levels of personal wellbeing and social capital in comparison with UK averages, although free-text responses highlighted a strong sense of community spirit and pride in the town. Low wellbeing was strongly associated with poor health, social isolation and neighbourhood factors such as perceived lack of community safety and trust.

PAR appears to be an acceptable approach in generating estimates of population characteristics associated with personal wellbeing.

The findings of this study may be used by policymakers to design services and interventions to better meet the needs of communities characterised by indicators of poor health and wellbeing.

This work constitutes part of a global trend to measure personal and societal wellbeing. A novel methodology has been used to examine the factors that influence wellbeing at a neighbourhood level.

In the last decade decision-makers on state, regional and local levels in Hungary gradually recognized the inevitability of urban regeneration and the opportunities the latter offers for architecture, economy and society. During the socialist era state investments focused on the forced construction of high-rise estates and inner city areas have been neglected. As a consequence of these processes urban regeneration started later in the Eastern European countries and these run-down areas could be characterised by disadvantaged positions on the new capitalist housing market. Twenty years after the change of regime stakeholders taking part in the urban regeneration process in Hungary slowly realise that problems of the built, natural and social environments overlap. Due to the change of mind first integrated urban development programmes appeared. Through these projects focusing on the rehabilitation of built and natural environments of cities experts already try to generate also socio-economic impacts. The article highlights current trends and characteristic features of urban regeneration in Hungary together with short introduction of strategies on national, regional and local levels. Main socio-economic impacts of rehabilitation processes closely related to the quality of life will also be presented through the results of empirical researches carried out in Budapest and the major Hungarian cities.

Over the past decade, in Europe the attention of scholars, as well as the focus of the political debate on the ‘urban social cohesion’, has become increasingly oriented to the issue of immigrants’ spatial segregation. This concern has gradually led to the promotion of urban policies oriented to fight against the residential segregation on ethnic basis, although the effects of residential concentration per se and social inclusion are not clearly identified, and minor attention has been devoted to understand and fight against the casual factors leading immigrants to occupy the most residual part of the social and physical urban space. By proposing a comparative analysis of two urban contexts – Copenhagen, Milan – that are different in terms of immigrants’ presence and legal status, as well as labour market integration and general welfare regime, the study explores some mechanisms promoting the social and spatial marginalization of immigrants in Europe. It also analyses the most important urban policies dealing with residential segregation, evaluating their capacity of facing the phenomenon or promoting (unexpected) negative consequences.

Attempts to nurture community self‐help in deprived neighbourhoods presently tend to pursue the “third sector” route of developing community‐based groups. Reporting data from recent UK government surveys of community involvement, however, this article uncovers how such a third sector approach promotes a form of community self‐help more reflective of the culture of engagement in affluent than deprived populations. If community self‐help is to be harnessed in ways that build on the existing culture of engagement in deprived neighbourhoods, then this article shows that the current third sector route will need to be complemented with a “fourth sector” approach that seeks to further develop informal forms of community self‐help (i.e., acts of one‐to‐one reciprocity(. The article concludes by outlining some possible policy initiatives that might be used to implement this fourth sector approach.