Regeneration, place-based work

Publications
Beneath the radar
Scotland Funders’ Forum, 2012
Seven stories paying tribute to small, local groups across Scotland, often run on a shoestring budget and with limited staffing and resources. The stories emphasise the contribution made by such groups to community well-being, providing vital services to vulnerable people. The publication raises concern about the increased struggle they face to survive in the current economic climate.

Capable communities: the case for community empowerment
IPPR and PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2010
The case for public services reform for greater citizen involvement in and responsibility for delivering services.

The case for community anchor organisations
Third Sector Research Centre, 2011
Eileen Conn is a community activist, in south London, who also worked for many years in Government, and has developed theoretical and practical work on social dynamics and complex living systems. She has published her arguments in support of the value of small groups and the services which nurture them and the power imbalance between policymakers and community groups. A short video interview and commentary here. 

Catalysts for community action and investment
Community Development Foundation
New Economics Foundation’s analysis of social return on investment (SROI) in community development activity. This report tracks the cost-benefit of four local authority community development teams, using SROI methodology to show how such investment today saves future expenditure on palliative intervention, from social services to policing costs. 

Creating stronger and more inclusive communities
New Economics Foundation, 2011
This report is about innovation that unlocks communities’ strengths and shows how people with support needs can also be assets to their communities. It outlines seven principles for empowerment and inclusion for an age of austerity. 

Developing a rich and vibrant JSNA
Local Government Improvement and Development
An overview of work that took place as part of the asset based pilot process within the Wakefield district. The process and key learning points offer insights into developing joint strategic needs assessments that reflect community assets and strengths as well as their needs and “deficits”.

Glass Half Full
LG Improvement and Development, 2010
The case for an asset-based approach to reducing inequalities in community health and wellbeing. It focuses on public health and the role of local authorities, drawing on some examples from London (e.g. LB Camden), offering health practitioners a possible response to the challenges of empowering communities. Asset mapping, asset-based community development and open space technology are described in some detail. 

Growing and sustaining self help
Tom Archer and Dave Vanderhoven, Community Development Foundation, 2010
This report is the culmination of CDF’s Self Help project, based on work with five community groups, and showing solutions to the key challenges facing self help. It argues that central government and local public bodies can create the conditions for self help to grow and that they should support and resource it, especially if “the converging ambitions of localism and the Big Society” are to be met. 

Little Big Societies: micro-mapping of organisations operating below the radar
Andri Soteri-Proctor, Third Sector Research Centre Working and Briefing Paper 71, 2011
Study of two very small areas in depth, a reminder of how many community organisations are very small and informal. The researchers found 58 community groups operating in and around 11 streets – groups not on regulators’ lists and missing from more standard VCS analysis, yet delivering diverse services for specific interests and target communities.

Making the case for community development
Agnes Gautier, Thomas Neumark and Meghan Rainsberry, Community Development Foundation, 2010
Guidance to help community groups and organisations communicate to local government the vital importance of community development work in achieving public sector objectives.

Public service challenge: implementing the lessons from Total Place
Lessons learned from a number of pilot schemes across the country, showing how Total Place improved services and reduced the costs of providing public services. 

Valuing housing and green spaces: Understanding local amenities, the built environment and house prices in London
GLAEconomics, Working Paper 42, 2010
Updates previous analysis on valuing green space in London. It looks at the factors involved in differential house prices and how far nearness to green spaces influences them. 

What works in neighbourhood-level regeneration?
Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research, Sheffield Hallam University for Communities and Local Government, 2010
A report on key stakeholders in eight New Deal for Communities areas which saw positive change from 2002-8 and the experience of regeneration practitioners working in some of the most deprived neighbourhoods in the country.

Why do neighbourhoods stay poor?
Centre for Housing and Planning Research, Cambridge University, 2010
A major two-year study of neighbourhood deprivation in Birmingham for the Barrow Cadbury Trust looks at why, despite long periods of national economic growth and major local regeneration programmes, there are still severe concentrations of poverty and deprivation in neighbourhoods across Birmingham.