Economic competitiveness and social exclusion lie at the heart of the UK government’s urban policy agenda, underpinning policy initiatives at national, regional and local levels. The two themes have been extensively researched, although usually separately and with few attempts to link them. The two issues were also prominent in the ESRC ‘Cities’ research programme with a particular focus on the important issue of the relationship between competitiveness and cohesion, posing the question as to ‘how cities develop and mobilise distinctive economic assets to secure competitive advantage and how these processes impact upon and are influenced by social cohesion …’. This raises the question of the nature and the direction of the possible relationship between competitiveness and cohesion, problematising:

It is this relationship between cohesion and competitiveness that this chapter tries to explore. Before addressing this set of issues more directly, it is important to try to pin down a few definitions.

Social cohesion, social exclusion, social inclusion: towards definitions

Social cohesion and social exclusion are now widely used concepts both in research and in the policy arena in the UK. Like ideas of ‘community’ however, they have acquired multiple and fuzzy meanings – perhaps as Atkinson (1998) suggests, this being the reason for their proliferation. At the same time, as with many such terms, there are important issues being discussed in the name of cohesion and exclusion and one cannot simply dismiss what they try to capture. For while some have suggested they represent simply a relabelling of earlier debates around now less fashionable concepts of poverty and deprivation (Levitas, 1996, 1998), many would argue that while true to some extent, there are important ways in which debates, both academic and policy, have developed and moved forwards, as outlined below.