Louise Lawson

Neighbourhood demolition, relocation and health: a qualitative longitudinal study of housing-led urban regeneration in Glasgow, UK

We conducted a qualitative longitudinal study to explore how adult residents of disadvantaged urban neighbourhoods (Glasgow, UK) experienced neighbourhood demolition and relocation. Data from 23 households was collected in 2011 and 2012. Some participants described moves to new or improved homes in different neighbourhoods as beneficial to their and their families’ wellbeing. Others suggested that longstanding illnesses and problems with the new home and/or neighbourhood led to more negative experiences. Individual-level contextual differences, home and neighbourhood-level factors and variations in intervention implementation influence the experiences of residents involved in relocation programmes.

Rethinking the purpose of community empowerment in neighbourhood regeneration: The need for policy clarity:

Community empowerment is a core element of area regeneration policy in the UK. In this article we question whose purpose the policy goal of community empowerment serves by examining the policy from three ‘actor’ perspectives in a neighbourhood regeneration setting: the Housing Association, a campaign group that became a Registered Tenants Organisation and residents living in the area. Using a model of community empowerment developed, we conclude that the ‘wider community’ was not empowered by the processes but that community empowerment was used by other parties to legitimate their aims. We make three conclusions in relation to: the relevance of community empowerment alongside other objectives; policy oversight and regulation; and, the relationship between community empowerment and representative democratic structures.

Damned if they do, damned if they don't: negotiating the tricky context of anti-social behaviour and keeping safe in disadvantaged urban neighbourhoods

Young peoples relationship with anti-social behaviour (ASB) is complicated. While their behaviours are often stereotyped as anti-social (e.g. ‘hanging about’), they also experience ASB in their neighbourhood. In this study, we explore young peoples own perspectives on ASB, comparing results from ‘go-along’ interviews and focus groups conducted in disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Glasgow, Scotland. This article discusses how young peoples everyday experience of ASB was contextualised by social factors such as cultural stereotyping of marginalised groups, poor social connectivity and spatial marginalisation within their neighbourhood. Furthermore, we found that these social factors were mutually reinforcing and interacted in a way that appeared to leave young people in a ‘no-win’ situation regarding their association with ASB. Participation in ASB and attempts to avoid such involvement were seen to involve negative consequences: participation could entail violence and spatial restrictions linked to territoriality, but avoidance could lead to being ostracised from their peer group. Regardless of involvement, young people felt that adults stereotyped them as anti-social. Our findings therefore provide support for policies and interventions aimed at reducing ASB (perpetrated by residents of all ages); in part by better ensuring that young people have a clear incentive for avoiding such behaviours.

‘Community Empowerment’ in the Context of the Glasgow Housing Stock Transfer:

A key objective of the Glasgow housing stock transfer in 2003 was promoting community empowerment, community control and community ownership. The first-stage transfer was from Glasgow City Council to Glasgow Housing Association and it was assumed by many that transfer to local housing organisations (LHOs)—thus promoting community ownership—would follow. This paper assesses the nature of community empowerment in LHO management committees and is part of a wider programme of research on governance, participation and empowerment. The study found that, despite its construction and aims, stock transfer policy is not able to deliver a uniform policy outcome in terms of community empowerment. No unitary relationship between community empowerment and community ownership was observed: it is suggested that the opportunity and capability to make choices about preferred management/ ownership arrangements is more empowering than ownership per se.

Housing Stock Transfer in Glasgow—the First Five Years: A Study of Policy Implementation

In 2003 the City of Glasgow saw the largest housing stock transfer in the UK, involving around 80 000 dwellings. Since then, the implementation of the stock transfer policy has been heavily criticised. This paper uses a framework developed from implementation studies to analyse why this policy has been susceptible to difficulties and to reflect upon the important elements of a revised analytical framework. The paper finds that the study of policy implementation must contain an appreciation of the effects of having multiple policy objectives, multiple layers of governance and multiple actors involved in policy delivery. Additional elements of a policy implementation framework are: the specification of the stages of implementation; consideration of interactions between policy objectives; the need for government to oversee and ensure the effective management of policy networks; and finally, consideration of the effects of competing political interests and perspectives.

You Can't Always Get What You Want...? Prior-Attitudes and Post-Experiences of Relocation from Restructured Neighbourhoods

This study uses a longitudinal, qualitative research methodology to compare residents’ prior attitudes towards relocation from restructured neighbourhoods with their experiences post-move. Participants were householders in families with children, with interviews carried out shortly before, and up to 18 months after relocation. There was generally a good fit between prior attitudes and post-experiences, although those who had not wanted to move reported more gains than expected, and those who had wanted to move to ‘get on’ with their lives had yet to make major changes in their lives after relocation. There was some retrospective reassessment of prior attitudes after relocation, consistent with the notion of low expectations among deprived area residents. There were both social and psychosocial gains from relocation, with a weak prior sense of community and inconsistent effects of distance upon social outcomes. Important mediators of adult experiences and outcomes were personality, health status and relations with children.

‘Power to the (young) people’? Children and young people's empowerment in the relocation process associated with urban re-structuring

This paper is about children and young peoples (CYP) empowerment in the process of urban restructuring, based on parental reflections. Its focus is involuntary relocation in the context of transformational urban regeneration in a Scottish city using cross-sectional and longitudinal qualitative data, based on 20 family households (at wave 1) comprising 40 CYP. Specifically, we are interested in how empowerment plays out – directly or indirectly – in the private space of the family and home, and for different age groups. We identified three sets of ‘empowerment’ or decision-making situations where CYP were involved: rationalising the need to move; deciding where to move to; and helping children cope and adjust to change. We found that empowerment differs by age and varies between pre-move discussions, decision-making and post-move dislocation and other outcomes. In the ‘Discussion’ section to this paper, we raise issues about relocation from one deprived neighbourhood to another; parental objectives to avoid social disruption for their children; and, the effects of distance upon empowerment. We can see some degree of empowerment for CYP in terms of securing better outcomes after relocation.

Changing contexts, critical moments and transitions: interim outcomes for children and young people living through involuntary relocation

Abstract The aim of this article is to understand how involuntary relocation – in the context of transformational regeneration – affects children and young people’s (CYP) interim outcomes through its impacts on residential contexts, and its intersections with their transitions and critical moments. Findings are based on a longitudinal qualitative study of 13 families’ (comprising 32 CYP) lives as they relocated from high rise flats to different housing and neighbourhoods over three years. Relocation altered two key contexts directly, home and neighbourhood, and may have indirectly altered the other contexts – peers, school and family. However, we found there were as many non-relocation related factors as relocation factors associated with outcomes, and a number of significant critical moments affecting CYP’s lives. Whilst relocation can seem the ‘big thing’ from the point of view of practitioners and researchers, from the perspective of CYP, it can seem a small part of the much bigger picture of change in their lives.