Highlights

The webpage of my ERC project DEPRIVEDHOODS is online. See: www.deprivedhoods.eu

ERC team now complete

After 6 months preparation, the ERC project DEPRIVEDHOODS has formally started on the 1st of August 2014. The whole research team is complete and ready to go. The first formal ERC meeting took place 1-3 October in Delft. From right to left: Ana Petrovic (PhD student), Kadi Mägi (PhD student), Kadri Leetmaa, Elise de Vuijst (PhD student), Merle Zwiers (PhD student), Jaap Nieuwenhuis (Post Doc), David Manley, Lina Hedman, Tiit Tammaru, Zhiqiang Feng, Reinout Kleinhans, Maarten van Ham. Not on the photo are Tom Kleinepier and Heleen Janssen, both postdoctoral researchers on the team.

I have won a 2 million Euro ERC Consolidator Grant. Project title: Socio-spatial inequality, deprived neighbourhoods, and neighbourhood effects (DEPRIVEDHOODS). More news will follow.

NEW ESRC Seminar series "Entrepreneurship in Homes & Neighbourhoods": Entrepreneurship and small firms are seen to have important roles in facilitating economic growth. Debates and policy strategies focus mainly on access to business capital and the creation of entrepreneurial environments in designated areas such as Enterprise Zones while a great potential for local growth occurs ‘under the radar’ of enterprise policy and business services: many people start their businesses from home... For more information click here.

Podcast interview on my opening keynote lecture for the Understanding Society conference on the 24th of July at the University of Essex is now available here.

My inaugural lecture as a Professor of Urban Renewal at Delft University of Technology (12 December 2012) is now available here (in Dutch only).

2013 book: Neighbourhood Effects or Neighbourhood Based Problems?

This edited volume critically examines the link between area based policies, neighbourhood based problems, and neighbourhood effects: the idea that living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods has a negative effect on residents’ life chances over and above the effect of their individual characteristics. Over the last few decades, Western governments have persistently pursued area based policies to fight such effects, despite a lack of evidence that they exist, or that these policies make a difference. The first part of this book presents case studies of perceived neighbourhood based problems in the domains of crime; health; educational outcomes; and employment. The second part of the book presents an international overview of the policies that different governments have implemented in response to these neighbourhood based problems, and discusses the theoretical and conceptual processes behind place based policy making. Case studies are drawn from a diverse range of countries including the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Australia, Canada, and the USA.



2012 book: Neighbourhood Effects Research: New Perspectives

Over the last 25 years a vast body of literature has been published on neighbourhood effects: the idea that living in more deprived neighbourhoods has a negative effect on residents’ life chances over and above the effect of their individual characteristics. The volume of work not only reflects academic and policy interest in this topic, but also the fact that we are still no closer to answering the question of how important neighbourhood effects actually are. There is little doubt that these effects exist, but we do not know enough about the causal mechanisms which produce them, their relative importance in shaping individual’s life chances, the circumstances or conditions under which they are most important, or the most effective policy responses. Collectively, the chapters in this book offer new perspectives on these questions, and refocus the academic debate on neighbourhood effects. The book enriches the neighbourhood effects literature with insights from a wide range of disciplines and countries.



2013 book: Understanding neighbourhood dynamics: new insights for neighbourhood effects research

There is wide belief in neighbourhood effects: the idea that living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods has a negative effect on residents’ life chances over and above the effect of their individual characteristics. A central question in the neighbourhood effects literature is whether disadvantaged neighbourhoods can cause people to be poorer, suffer poor health and to have lower general wellbeing, or whether adverse outcomes observed in these neighbourhoods simply reflect the poverty of households who come to live in these places. The answer to this question has major consequences for policy responses to disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Developing a better understanding of neighbourhood choice and neighbourhood dynamics is at the heart of a better understanding of neighbourhood effects, but is also beneficial for literatures on residential mobility, segregation, and neighbourhood change. Collectively, the chapters in this book offer a state-of-the-art overview of literature on neighbourhood dynamics, including empirical contributions from the United Kingdom, Australia, Sweden, The Netherlands, and the USA.


2010 book: Ethnicity and Integration. Understanding Population Trends and Processes: volume 3

The ethnic composition of Britain’s population is changing rapidly as the 21st century progresses. Some commentators predict a catastrophic future of increasing ethnic segregation and community breakdown, whereas others say that the benefits of ethnic pluralism and cultural diversity will lead to a more integrated society. This book addresses many of the key issues and debates associated with ethnicity and integration in Britain. It provides the reader with an enhanced understanding of ethnic population change and residential concentration, ethnic household dynamics, internal and international migration, the relationship between ethnicity and health, crime, identity and language, as well as ethnic population projections. Collectively, the findings presented here constitute an evidence base for policymakers and practitioners to draw upon when formulating solutions to the range of problems at local, regional and national level that are associated with an increasingly multi-ethnic society.





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