Joe Doherty

Postmodernism and the social sciences

Preface - Introduction: The Context and Language of Postmodernism E.Graham, J.Doherty & M.Malek - Postmodern Anthropology? Or, An Anthropology of Postmodernity? R.Fardon - Social Science and Postmodern Spatialisations: Jamesons Aesthetic of Cognitive Mapping R.Shields - Geography, Difference and the Politics of Scale N.Smith - Discourse Discourse: Social Psychology and Postmodernity I.Parker - Development Psychology and the Postmodern Child E.Burman - Postmodernity and the Globalisation of Technoscience: The Computer, Cognitive Science and War J.Bowers - Modernity, Postmodernism and International Relations N.Rengger & M.Hoffman - Postmodernism and Economics S.Dow - Postmodernism or Modernism?: Social Theory Revisited S.Lash - Cultural Theory, Philosophy and the Study of Human Affairs: Hot Heads and Cold Feet J.Haldane - Postmodern Horizons - Postmodernism and Paradox E.Graham - Postmodern Politics J.Doherty - List of Contributors - Bibliography - Index

Mixing housing tenures: is it good for social well-being?

Mixing tenures is now a widely accepted policy designed to tackle problems of social exclusion in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. However, the evidence base for mixing tenures is fragmented and ambiguous. With few exceptions, studies of mixed-tenure effects have been small, one-off investigations of individual communities, providing only a rudimentary basis for comparative evaluation. In attempting to address these issues, a national-level, ecological analysis of mixed tenure in Great Britain was conducted, using aggregate data from two decennial censuses and geocoded vital registrations. Asking the question whether mixing housing tenures is good for social well-being, the objective of the research is to establish under what, if any, circumstances tenure mixing is positively related to indicators of the social well-being of an areas population. The findings provide little support for positive outcomes and lead the authors to question the efficacy of mixing tenures as a policy for improving social well-being.

EUROPEAN HOUSING POLICIES: BRINGING THE STATE BACK IN? 1

Housing occupies a unique place in public policy, neither fully part of the welfare state, nor fully part of the free market…Nevertheless, housing has been subject to sustained, pervasive and fundamental forms of intervention by the state for well over a hundred years. Todays housing markets and housing outcomes have been decisively shaped by public policy. (Kleinman 1996: 1)

SUPPORTED HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

This paper considers the nature of support in housing as a solution to homelessness and the way in which it has developed across Europe. The paper begins by considering the nature of support in relation to housing and suggests a typology to provide a framework for discussing the relationship between the accommodation and care perspectives involved in supporting a person to live independently in the community. There follows a consideration of the nature of support in housing which examines the different approaches to the provision of support and housing in Europe. This section examines the development and form of provision of support in housing in different welfare systems. This understanding is then employed to identify the nature of the contribution of supported housing to the solution to homelessness. The role is examined in greater detail by examination of the use of supported housing for people with a mental illness.

Differences in 5-year survival after a ‘homeless’ or ‘housed’ drugs-related hospital admission: a study of 15–30-year olds in Scotland

Background Young drug misusers and the homeless both have a greater risk of death than their peers. This study sought to estimate the additional impact of homelessness on the risk of death for young drugs misusers. Methods From all admissions to NHS hospitals in Scotland between 1986 and 2001, those that were: drug misuse related, for people born between 1970 and 1986 and aged over 15 years (n=13 303), were selected. All subsequent admissions and registrations of death were linked to this dataset. Each admission was coded as homeless if the health board of residence was coded as ‘no fixed abode’. 5-year survival after an admission was modelled using (1) life table and (2) proportional hazard models and then (3) differences in causes of deaths were explored. Results Immediately after a drugs-related hospital admission there was no difference in survival between the homeless and those with a ‘fixed address’. However, over a 3-year period the risk for those who were homeless was 3.5 times greater (CI 95% 1.2 to 12.8). This elevated risk seemed to be particularly focused on the second year after an admission. The causes of death were similar for the two groups. Conclusion Although a homeless hospital admission is associated with a greater risk of death for young drug users, it is also a point in time when a young person is in contact with public services. An attempt to link their discharge with housing services would seem a potentially productive policy.

Introduction: The Context and Language of Postmodernism

In any collection of essays on the topic of postmodernism, it is tempting to dispense with an editorial introduction and not only because it is a difficult topic to introduce. The collection in this volume is based on a conference held at the University of St Andrews in August 1989. The aim of that meeting was to bring together social scientists from different disciplinary backgrounds to explore the common ‘problem’ of postmodernism. What does it mean? What are the individual social sciences making of it? Can they talk to each other about it? The results were both interesting and exhilarating with many voices saying different things and probably generating more controversy than agreement. What follows is a selection of essays covering all the major social sciences. They display a wide variety of responses to postmodernism. Herein lies the temptation to let the reader loose immediately to experience the variety, the fragmentation, the differences and perhaps the confusions which have become as much features of the literature on postmodernism as they are said to be of postmodernism itself. Such an editorial approach would certainly be in tune with the mood of postmodern writings. Yet we have decided not to take this course for two reasons. First, although the volume is not intended to be a celebration of postmodernism, neither is it intended to be a sustained critique. Its task is rather to contribute to an important debate within the social sciences by examining the impact of postmodernist ideas in their (modernist) academic locales.

Preventing Homelessness among Substance Users in Europe

Prior to the 1970s, neither homelessness nor drug addiction was seen as issues of major concern in Europe. At most, they were of local interest and of particular importance only in some larger metropolitan centres. Over the last three decades they have come much more into public prominence and risen up in local and national policy agendas. At the level of the European Union (EU), however, while the use and abuse of drugs has attracted substantial financial resources and institutional involvement, homelessness, in comparison, has been relatively neglected and remains predominantly the concern of non-government and voluntary organisations. At all three levels—local, national, and European—it is only in recent years that the link between homelessness and problematic substance use has come to the fore as an issue of singular concern. This paper examines the recent emergence of policies and programmes which seek to tackle and prevent homelessness among substance users. Our investigation suggests that although new initiatives at the EU level are limited, at the national and especially sub-national level, effective programmes addressing both treatment and prevention are being designed and implemented.

Housing and development in Freetown, Sierra Leone

Abstract This article surveys housing problems in Freetown and argues that the perpetuation of housing problems in Freetown and the failure to implement housing policies cannot be attributed merely to bureaucratic inadequacies and resource limitations. They can only be fully understood by reference to the way the main agents of housing provision, the private market and the state, operate in the specific social and economic conditions of underdeveloped capitalism.

Neil Smith, 1954–2012: “The Future is Indeed Radically Open”

Neil Smith, Distinguished Professor of Geography and Anthropology, and founding Director of the Center for Place, Culture and Politics at the City University of New York (CUNY), died in New York on 29 September 2012. Neil graduated from St. Andrews University in 1977 with an outstanding first class honors degree in geography and completed his Ph.D. with David Harvey at Johns Hopkins University in 1982. Following his first tenured appointment in geography at Columbia University, he moved to Rutgers in 1986; in 1990 he was promoted to a full professorship. In 2000 he was appointed Distinguished Professor at CUNY, and in 2009 was additionally appointed as the Sixth Century Chair in Geography and Social Theory at the University of Aberdeen. During his all too brief life, Neil published at least five substantive, and

Book Review: Restructuring Large Housing Estates in Europe: Ronald van Kempen, Karien Dekker, Stephen Hall and Ivan Tosics (Eds), 2005 Bristol: The Policy Press 380 pp. No price given, paperback ISBN 1 86134 775 8 paperback

and how urban policy-makers should turn their city into the perfect place for creativity, innovation and therewith economic success. Montgomery is convinced that cities can only be economically successful in the coming decades if they provide ample space and opportunities for creative and innovative companies and people. He appreciates Richard Florida for his contribution to raising the political awareness of the creative economy, but is (for good reasons) critical about the statistical evidence upon which he builds his argument, and the extent to which the correlations that Florida finds can be interpreted as causal relations. Still, criticising Florida is easy, but the ‘counterevidence’ of Montgomery is hardly more convincing. He only presents facts and fi gures on the development of the creative industries in one city, London. The other case studies he presents throughout the book are either only descriptive or based on his experiences as policy-maker and consultant. Montgomery seems to be much more appreciative of the work of Charles Landry. This should not come as a surprise since he worked for Landry’s Comedia for some years and then founded Urban Cultures Ltd as an offspring. The extensive presentation of some of the cases in which the author or his company was involved (Manchester’s cultural strategy, various reports on the ‘evening economy’ of British cities, London’s creative industries, Temple Bar in Dublin) sometimes gives the book a product catalogue feel. This makes the reader wonder what the true goal of Montgomery’s book is: a contribution to the academic debate, a policy advice on how to build more creative cities, or an exhibit of the author’s extensive knowledge and experience? The book results in a proposed policy agenda for achieving urbanity in cities as a whole (12 conditions and 25 principles on pp. 279–291) and for developing creative milieus (9 policy programmes on pp. 346–358). This policy agenda mainly calls for a compact, diverse, lively city on a ‘human scale’, in which people of varying backgrounds meet each other and feel at home. While this policy agenda will probably meet broad consensus among present-day urban and regional planners, Montgomery’s pleas for ‘café culture’ and arts-led urban regeneration deserve a more critical academic and political debate. Many policy-makers have recently embraced the creation of cultural or creative quarters as the way to revive their cities and attract or retain the ‘creative class’. Montgomery shows us some cases where such a policy worked and there are many more of such cases. However, it does not work everywhere and it does not appeal to everyone. Not all urban-dwellers are creative or want to live among creative people; and not all creative people want to live in ‘creative milieus’. Montgomery’s vision of the 21stcentury city probably only applies to a limited number of economically successful cities and an even more limited number of less successful cities with the potential to become successful in the creative economy. And even within those cities, a signifi cant part of the population is not and will probably never become directly or indirectly involved in the creative economy. Many other cities will not or will hardly be able to get their fair share of creative growth. Large parts of the world with fast-growing cities are only briefl y referred to or not addressed at all: what will happen to Chinese, Indian, African or Latin-American metropolises? Montgomery presents his book as a comprehensive inventory of historical, contemporary and future urban and economic development, but we should rather see his book as his personal vision of a possible and desirable future urban world.