Abstract
This is a useful and insightful examination of living conditions in social-housing estates in Ireland. It will be of considerable interest to anyone working on questions about urban poverty and area-based policies and interventions in social-housing areas. It draws from the evidence gathered from two rounds of research on seven urban social-housing neighbourhoods in Dublin, Cork, Sligo, Dundalk, and Limerick, the first in 1997–1998, and an updated study in 2007–2009. It therefore straddles a period of notable change, including the experience of economic boom/bust and also considerable policy experimentation, particularly involving various area-based interventions to alleviate the most extreme experiences of urban disadvantage. So we get some insights to the local manifestations of these big changes in economy and society and accompanying policy experiments in structurally disadvantaged areas. The adopted timeframe allows them to come to an assessment of what has happened drawing from the experiences on the ground in the areas under study, which have been variously subjected to sometimes ambitious area-based interventions. The authors argue that there are differences between these neighbourhoods in what they term ‘liveability’, a qualitative question, despite similar levels of disadvantage, a quantifiable concern.
A broader related aim is to investigate why there have been different outcomes in terms of regeneration across the various areas. The localities under study have been targeted by multiple area-based anti-poverty schemes, and in one case there has been a dramatic physical intervention, involving a PPP demolition and rebuild. The study manages to bridge essentially quantitative measures of deprivation and more fluid qualitative questions about liveability using convincing and appropriate research strategies. Trutz Haase provides a careful quantitative picture drawing on the Pobal HP Deprivation Index, an instrument for mapping the spatial distribution of poverty and affluence. It reveals a complex and varied picture, as some of the areas have improved, but others have worsened or deteriorated over the timeframe under study. Mary Corcoran offers a qualitative exploration at the level of the lifeworld, drawing on standard qualitative techniques, such as interviews and focus groups. This reveals a weak relationship between the quality of the built environment and liveability. Essentially this is based on narrative accounts of the neighbourhood. Over the time period under study the findings appear mixed. However, importantly there appears ample evidence to support the geographic contention that place matters in the determination of quality of life. There appear to be different degrees of liveability despite similar levels of deprivation.
Norris and O’Connell explore the changing context in terms of social housing management, making the key point that the historic background of all of these neighbourhoods as social-housing estates is central to understanding their qualitative experiences and policy environments. This means the evolution of social housing policy and management is key to their stories. In particular we need to be cognisant of the changing conceptualisation and practice of the housing manager’s role. This includes in recent years the emergence of complex and ambitious regeneration strategies.
Humphreys and McCaffrey examine the rationale for area-based approaches, which have introduced a significant turn to localism in an otherwise highly centralised Irish state. These also represent local responses to the linked complex challenges of globalisation and uneven development. Arguably, Ireland provides a test case for the efficacy of bottom-up policies of development in response to the contradictions of globalisation. The area-based approach offers the opportunity to pursue and test pilot projects, exploring innovative departures. It also offers a means of testing if there are neighbourhood effects, such as community empowerment. The hope is that successful approaches might be mainstreamed in the fight against poverty and disadvantage.
Norris then offers an assessment of area-based interventions within the wider Irish welfare state. The question is as to the efficacy of spatial targeting alongside traditional targeting by income group, or personal characteristics. Her finding is that the effects are somewhat less than might be expected considering the amount of investment under area-based schemes. The scale and diversity of the experiment is well captured through a detailed series of tables that chart a bewildering array of programmes (24 by 2006).
Humphreys and McCaffrey offer an analysis of overall levels of area-based funding in particular localities in order to explore the cumulative local effect of these geographically targeted interventions. They also present a detailed mapping of interventions, recording some of the detail of 60 area-based interventions across four estates under study. Given the amount going on, Ireland could be seen as a test-case for the efficacy of such area-based responses, as there have been several models pursued in various urban poverty blackspots. Such approaches elsewhere have been critiqued for confusing or indeed obscuring the real structural bases of inequality, seeking instead to find problems of geography, when in fact what is under examination is simply the spatial patterning of structural inequality, whether of class, gender or ethnicity. The geographic emphasis is arguably to turn away from the more intractable structural problems. This is an analytical weakness/error identified by Doreen Massey (1979) in her landmark paper ‘In what sense a regional problem?’, which ably argues for a more focused critical assessment of the real bases of inequality as a basis for policy intervention.
Aileen O’Gorman examines the important and vexed question of problem drug use and related social disorder. In this question we do see important geographic factors, as the spatial clustering of risk factors creates a risk environment, which facilitates the emergence of community drug problems. Marginalisation, structural conditions, and policy responses shape the development of drug problems at neighbourhood level. The same author then turns to examine the importance of social (dis)order as a factor in housing/neighbourhood success or failure.
In many ways image and stigma is key to understanding the experiences and struggles of these neighbourhoods, which is attended to in the examination of media representations of Moyross in Limerick explored in the analysis by Haynes et al. The problem is how mass media can be a factor in stigmatising the socially excluded and the places in which they live. The chapter is based on a tripartite approach to media analysis. The analysis reveals the stigmatising processes at work, which construct a pathological place, an abnormal entity; effectively this serves ‘to homogenize the neighbourhood and its residents, tarring all with the same stereotype’ (p. 211).
It would have been useful to attempt to enter into an assessment from the reported experiences of the efficacy or otherwise of area-based responses to structural difficulties. This question of philosophy is not entered into, which is a pity given the level of official faith in such approaches in Ireland, as represented by the amount of resources being diverted into the various area-based initiatives. It would have been interesting to draw on the considerable Irish experience to enter into some reflection on this more theoretical and indeed political debate. Of relevance to this concern, Norris and Fahey arrive at an important observation based on the evidence that there is a need for current supports of services for acutely disadvantaged households rather than the observed tendency to favour (sometimes dramatic) capital programmes of refurbishment and renewal.
This will be of considerable interest to anyone working on cognate questions of inequality and area urban interventions, as well as the problems of social housing estates. It makes a welcome contribution to the Irish urban literature. It speaks to the wider debate in the literature about area-based anti-poverty urban initiatives. Arguably Ireland presents a good laboratory, since there has been a considerable range of such approaches attempted over a long recent period covered by this study. It is a detailed work, covering an important timeframe in terms of economy and society and policy experimentation.