Introduction: definitions and debates

The concept of ‘neighbourhood’ has become increasingly powerful in urban policy and academic discourse. This is illustrated in England both by the targeting of policies at neighbourhood level and also by investment in the production and dissemination of meaningful neighbourhood-level data and the dedication of academic centres and think tanks to the study of neighbourhoods. However, the concept itself remains contested, its use accompanied by ongoing debates about definition and constitution as well as any contribution to the achievement of key policy goals.

Kearns and Parkinson (2001, p 2103) encapsulate the state of the contemporary debate in their declaration that ‘there is no single, generalisable interpretation of the neighbourhood’; rather, neighbourhoods are complex and multidimensional and dynamic and their construction depends on the nature of the interactions between individuals and their environments. This academic position is supported by recent policy statements in England, which seek to mobilise support for the role of neighbourhoods in local governance, while at the same time acknowledging that:

Whitehead (2003) offers a rather different interpretation of this apparent policy flexibility. He draws on Marxian interpretations as well as those of Lefebvre to propose the significance of the ‘politics of scale’ and the social, economic, political and ecological processes through which these scales are (re)produced for the idea of ‘neighbourhood’ in the 21st century.