Looking for arguments for and against using area-based responses in Urban crisis, if any one knows of any research or project examples, this would be extremely useful.
Furthermore any insight into why an area-based response would be more effective than a community-based response?
I think you may find some examples if you search for 'piecemeal planning' projects. I think it can be useful if the area is significantly different from the rest of its district in terms of the social capital, degree of investments, history of the area, architectural characteristics, levels of access to infrastructure, facilities, amenities and green spaces. In a period of time piecemeal planning was considered a good approach to solve the area-based short-term problems.
Area-based approaches can be problematic as the spatialize problems and ascribe them to specific areas and all the people in that area. Furthermore if one defines a problem with a bounded space the policies tend to be designed spatially bounded as well. A process that might reinforce the problematization and reproduce the boundaries. Problems are often spatial as well, but I don't think a bounded policy response is always helpful as problems might be connected to diverse aspects outside the targeted area.
You should also check the work of Georg Glasze and his diverse co-authors on this issue. If you can read German this article with Florian Weber might be helpful, at least there is an English abstract. "Drei Jahrzehnte area-basierte Stadtpolitik in Frankreich: die politique de la ville. Bearbeitung gesellschaftlicher Probleme mittels raumorientierter Ansätze? DOI 10.1007/s13147-010-0068-9
Hi Stephanie, great question, and like everything else: "it depends" is the answer. In the US, where I've done some research on this it can stimulate some business development, but the big questions that are hard to answer - were these effects really the result of policy. Despite some methodological improvements at answering this, I think that there has been consensus that the effects are limited. Peters and someone else wrote a book on this, reviewing the scholarly lit - I believe in the early 2000s. My paper with Paul Ong on the Los Angeles Revitalization Zone finds that they easily become political opportunities, even though they might show some positive effects. What i think is a more appropriate approach is HOW do area-based (place-based) incentives coordinate with non-area based ones (or not, as is the case in the US). I think this is woefully understudied and tried to shed some light on this in 2005 and 2007 papers, when I examined the spatial impact of a working poor tax credit, the EITC. Found that way more money went into the Enterprise Zone through the EITC than through the EZ itself. Also found that this income had a job creation effect. Since then, i don't believe that others have asked this kind of question, but it does seem to me to be a very important one that can help get beyond a dichotomy that is quite limiting for policy makers. Hope that is helpful...
You can see from the first contributors that either area based or community based depends on several factors. We all do not know the kind of urban crisis you are dealing with as urban crisis manifest in many ways and typologies. Some may area based while others are community based. This demarcation should help you define which good or bad to use in a particular situation.
Thank you all for some very interesting comments and thoughts and especially for the literature that you have suggested.
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