Introduction

Integral to New Labour's vision for an urban renaissance is the belief that empowered and mobilised communities can and should play an enhanced role in the development and implementation of urban policy agendas. Modernising Britain, in New Labour terms, requires a rearticulation of active citizenship, with the state's role moving from that of a provider of (welfare) services, to that of a facilitator. The state will enable communities and individuals to take more responsibility for the conduct of their own lives.

The Blair government has embarked on a series of reforms that seek to reconstruct the relationships between civil society and the state based on new modern principles of flexibility, lean government, and a withdrawal of the state from particular territories of action (see Chapter One of this volume). This chapter draws on the contributions to this volume as well as research elsewhere to examine the status and meaning of the term ‘community’ in this new context, and the role that communities may play in the renaissance of Britain's cities. It argues that, despite the rhetoric of empowerment and capacity building that characterises urban policy discourses, the rise of community has to be understood, primarily, in instrumental terms. Community mobilisation is a means to an end for policy makers. It plays a key role in legitimising and facilitating regeneration programmes in a context where the role of the state is changing and communities and individuals are increasingly being forced to play a greater role in their own governance.

The chapter also interrogates the processes involved in defining communities. It argues that despite the complexities and contingencies of community formation, all communities are characterised by boundaries of inclusion and exclusion. As such, the potential for community-based agendas to provide inclusive and democratic forms of urban politics is relatively limited (see Chapters Seven and Eight of this volume). All too often, this inherent exclusivity is put to one side in policy and academic debates concerning urban governance and regeneration policy. Communities are often assumed to exist in particular places and the aim of policy is to help them to help themselves.