Publications

Book Launch - 5th July 2011
Family Futures

Date and Time: Tues 5th July 2011, 6.30-8pm, followed by an informal reception

Location: Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building, 54 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London School of Economics, London, WC2A 3LJ

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Speakers:

Rt Hon Margaret Hodge Member of Parliament for Barking.

Anne Power, Professor of Social Policy, London School of Economics.

Dr Katherine Rake Chief Executive, Family and Parenting Institute.

Jane Waldfogel, Professor of Social Work and Public Affairs at Columbia University School of Social Work and a visiting professor at the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics.

David Piachaud, Professor of Social Policy, London School of Economics (Chair).

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Podcast and Presentations:

• Listen to the Podcast of the event

• Anne Power: Family Futures
  
  
• Jane Waldfogel: Lessons from Family Futures

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Outline
Family futures is about family life in areas of concentrated poverty and social problems where surrounding conditions make bringing up children more difficult and family life more fraught and limited. Home and neighbourhood carry special meaning for families, because where they live, how they fit in with their neighbours, and how their children grow up all intertwine, to build a sense of community. This timely book, by acclaimed author Anne Power and her team, is based on a unique longitudinal study of over 200 families interviewed annually over the last decade. It answers three important questions in the words of families themselves:

• What challenges face families in poor areas?
• How are the challenges being met?
• Have government efforts helped or hindered progress over the past decade?

This event will have wide appeal to people who work with, live in and care about families and low-income areas.

Copies of the book can be purchased from Policy Press http://www.policypress.co.uk/

For further information about this event, please contact

• Nicola Serle at LSE, Email: N.Serle@lse.ac.uk; Tel: +44 (0)20 7955 6330

Report Launch
Cutting Carbon Costs: Learning from Germany's Energy Saving Program

A new report by Anne Power and Monika Zulauf has been published by The Brookings Institution

Download Cutting Carbon Costs: Learning from Germany's Energy Saving Program in Adobe PDF

Summary:

Energy shortages, unpredictable and high energy prices, waste, pollution, and fears of climate change all drive a sense of urgency in the West about reducing its energy dependence on unreliable sources. Europe imports over half its total energy from volatile producers around the globe. While the United States is able to meet somewhat more of its energy demand from domestic sources, its per capita energy consumption level is twice that of Europe's.

• The cheapest and most cost-effective path to greater energy security is energy saving, and the biggest, most certain place to do that is in our built environment, which in developed Western countries uses half of all energy and generates half of all greenhouse gases. Most of this energy usage is wasted by leaking out through walls, windows, roofs, floors, doors, and through inefficient equipment.
  
  
• All members of the European Union (27 countries) have adopted highly ambitious production targets for renewable energy, and equally ambitious reduction targets for CO2 emissions, down at least 20 percent from 1990 levels.
  
  
• Germany is leading the way in developing "green" technologies and has the most ambitious energy-saving program in Europe, aiming for a 30 percent reduction in energy usage by 2020, and a 30-percent renewable energy share, consisting mainly of biomass, wind, and solar.
  
  
• Germany's energy saving program is based on three pillars:
  • A clear legal framework and tight regulation at the national level, requiring energy efficiency upgrades to buildings and increased use of renewable energy sources among electricity providers;
    
    
  • Strong financial incentives through subsidies and loans to reduce energy consumption in the built environment at all levels of government (at the national level, these are provided via a public investment bank sponsored by the German government); and
    
    
  • Information, promotion, and behavior change, working through regional and local bodies, developing enforceable standards through Energy Performance Certificates, and supporting model projects all over Germany.
  
  
  
• Since 2006, Germany has created nearly half a million new jobs in renewable energy, and over four years, around nearly 900,000 jobs in retrofitting homes and public buildings, such as schools. Green investment, new green technology development, and renewable energy exports are all major growth areas in Europe's strongest economy. By having taken these steps, Germany remains on track to meet aggressive greenhouse gas reduction targets by 2020 and 2050.
  
  
• Germany's experience - its successes and lessons learned - provide a solid evidence base from which nations like the United States can "leapfrog" Europe, and tackle even more pressing energy and climate change demands through deliberate public and private action.

Download Cutting Carbon Costs: Learning from Germany's Energy Saving Program in Adobe PDF

Report Launch
CASEreport 66: Obstacles and Opportunities

Obstacles and Opportunities is a short report based on what 200 parents told us over a ten year period of visiting them in their homes in low-income urban areas. We have produced three books based on this research: EastEnders: Family and Community in Urban Neighbourhoods; City Survivors: Bringing Up Children in Disadvantaged Neighbourhoods; and Family Futures: Childhood and poverty in urban areas (to be published by Policy Press in July 2011). The research that went into the three books informs this report but here we pull together a unique body of evidence and quotations. The particular focus of this report is on the opportunities and obstacles facing children and young people growing up in disadvantaged areas and the struggles of parents to overcome these barriers and build a better future for their families. We hope that this report will underline the sense of urgency about providing more, not less, for children and young people in disadvantaged areas. For these areas are still remarkably different from the average and the future of our society hinges on them becoming more equal and more integrated.

The report is written by Anne Power, Nicola Serle, and Helen Willmot and is now available to download in Adobe PDF format.

Report Launch
CASEreport 63, Housing Futures: our homes and communities. A report for the Federation of Master Builders

Small Land Sites Could Solve Housing Crisis

Reusing small empty sites of up to two acres could more than meet the UK's housing demand without building on green field land. This must be coupled with upgrading existing buildings, reclaiming and remodeling empty buildings, converting and upgrading homes to make existing neighbourhoods attractive. These are key findings from a new research report commissioned by the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) from the London School of Economics (LSE). This approach would generate local jobs but requires new skills, more training and apprenticeships, the report argues.

The report, 'Housing Futures: Our Homes and Communities', written by Professor Anne Power and Laura Lane of the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) at the LSE examines the four big pressures - supply and affordability of homes; environmental limits; social cohesion; and economic change - driving the future of housing policy in the UK.

The report highlights that there is capacity within existing communities to create all the new homes we need. Small available sites of under two hectares within built up areas are rarely counted and micro-sites of half an acre of less are literally too numerous to count. Yet it is estimated that even in inner London, where population density is highest and land scarcest, there are enough micro-sites to supply all the new homes we need.

If we make our existing homes greener and more energy efficient, the research found that the building industry had enough work in this field to keep every small and medium sized builder running to stay on top for the next 30 years. The retrofitting market for small builders offers, the report says, 'a very rosy future painted green', as homeowners realize the savings that could be made through making their homes more energy efficient. To capitalize on this growth market, the report calls for higher standards within the building industry, particularly the 200,000 Small to Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) which make up 99 percent of building industry. A 'Code for Sustainable Existing Homes' would drive up the energy efficiency standards of our existing homes and conversions. Accreditation and Competent Person Schemes enhance the status of the building industry, as long as they are linked to real experience and hands-on training.

Professor Anne Power, Professor of Social policy at the LSE said:
"We need to modernize our housing stock, reclaim and remodel empty buildings, fit new homes into small spaces within existing communities, and do all this with a fraction of the energy, materials and waste of the current building industry. This approach should generate many new jobs and skills in existing neighbourhoods; it should support training, apprenticeships and accreditation schemes; it should foster a new eco-retrofit supply chain. It will be quickly embraced by go-ahead small builders who know which side their bread is buttered on!"

Richard Diment, Director-General of the FMB said:
"Retrofitting is becoming an important part of any small builder's workload but this can only increase if SMEs can demonstrate the value and skill of their work which is why the FMB is investigating the need to start its own competent person scheme. We hope to use this to further improve the reputation of members that join the FMB, through regular on-going training and a clear grading system. Construction SMEs carry out almost 50 percent of all construction work in the UK, yet builders are often viewed with suspicion. In many other countries building is a respected trade, almost on a par with the professions and this is mainly due to accreditation and competency schemes. We recognise the important role such schemes will play in improving the reputation of the UK building industry."

Download the report: CASEreport 63, Housing Futures: our homes and communities. A report for the Federation of Master Builders by Anne Power and Laura Lane, June 2010.

For further information please visit the Federation of Master Builders website

LSE Housing, LSE Cities and Joseph Rowntree Foundation Lecture, Debate and Book Launch
Phoenix Cities - surviving financial, social and environmental turmoil in Europe and the US?

Date:	Tuesday 16th March 2010 18.00-19.45
Location:	Sheikh Zayed Theatre, Lower Ground Floor, New Academic Building, London School of Economics
Cost:	The event is free but a ticket is required
For tickets and further information please see: http://www2.lse.ac.uk/publicEvents/events/2010/20100316t1800vSZT.aspx, or contact Anna Tamas, Email: a.tamas@lse.ac.uk.

Summary:

This lecture and debate mark the launch of a new book Phoenix Cities: The fall and rise of great industrial cities.

• Lord Richard Rogers, international prize-winning architect, will offer his vision what the urban renaissance means for the 21st century;
• Bruce Katz, Head of the Metropolitan Program and Vice-President of the Brookings Institution, Washington DC, will report on the future of divided US cities in Obama’s America;
• Anne Power, Professor of Social Policy at the London School of Economics will outline the dramatic decline, turnaround and prospects of seven struggling European cities;
• Julia Unwin, Chief Executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, will round-up the event.

This event will debate where next for Phoenix Cities, given the economic shocks, the pressures of climate change and the social inequalities that sharply divide struggling cities. A panel of city reformers from European cities will give their reactions to these questions and Sir Howard Davies, Director of the London School of Economics, will Chair the lecture.

For tickets and further information please see:
http://www2.lse.ac.uk/publicEvents/events/2010/20100316t1800vSZT.aspx, or contact Anna Tamas, Email: a.tamas@lse.ac.uk. Phoenix Cities will be available to purchase at the event at a discounted rate of £20. Registration and refreshments will be from 5.15pm and a reception will follow the event 7.45-8.30pm.

For more details please see the Phoenix Cities flyer (in Adobe PDF format)

Report Launch
Soup Runs in Central London: The right help in the right place at the right time?

This report - written by Laura Lane and Anne Power of LSE Housing and CASE - aims to provide an independent and objective perspective on soup runs in the London Borough of Westminster. A broad understanding of soup run has been used throughout - to include any mobile food distribution service operating primarily to serve the homeless within the borough.

The issue of soup runs in Westminster has become a contentious and controversial issue with strong advocates both for and against their operation. For some, soup runs are a valuable, life-saving resource that help to feed and support rough sleepers and other vulnerable people. For others, soup runs represent an outdated, poorly targeted and uncoordinated service that supports and sustains damaging street lifestyles. We wanted to find out whether and how soup runs in Westminster fitted into the commitment of the Government to provide 'the right help, in the right place at the right time'.

Soup runs in Central London:'The right help in the right place at the right time?' By Laura Lane and Anne Power, July 2009.

Read the executive report (in Adobe PDF)

Read the full report (in Adobe PDF)

CASE Publication
Tale of 7 Cities: A practitioner's guide to city recovery by Anne Power, Astrid Winkler, Jörg Plöger and Laura Lane

This documentary booklet based on authors' photographs and local eye-witness comments traces radical social and economic change in seven European post-industrial cities.

Their cataclysmic decline and rebuilding has put them at the heart of national and international political ferment, spurring them on to uncover new ways of doing things. They showcase how former industrial heartlands across Europe can recover. Global population pressures and continuing migration, loss of investment and global fi nancial upheaval, climate change and resource limits, pose unknown threats to the future of cities, but these cities are at the cutting edge of new solutions.

Existing infrastructure, transport connections and dense services, a tradition of invention and innovation, are leading them to pioneer exciting new ideas. Big resources are tied into these places.

In our crowded continent, existing assets are constantly redeployed to cope with new shortages. Space, energy and the natural environment are three resources that drove growth in these cities. Innovative reuse of these fi nite resources propels 'clapped out' cities back to life, while the infectious spread of new ideas drives successful experiments in urban recovery.

The seven cities share an uncertain future with the rest of the globe but Tale of 7 Cities illustrates building blocks of recovering places that may survive and indeed flourish in a more sustainable world.

Download Tale of 7 Cities , in Adobe PDF format.

You may also like to download a flyer for the publication, or read a review by Time Magazine

CASEreport 55
Report to Incommunities on the About Turn Project, Anne Power, Laura Lane and Nicola Serle

CASEreport55 is an independent account of the work of the Incommunities About Turn project to support households in difficulty with their tenancy.

The project has run for 3 years and has a track record in dealing with difficult tenancies. LSE Housing examined tenancy records, evidence from staff interviews and family development, in order to highlight how much progress has been made, what barriers and difficulties are faced now and how this work fits within the wider Bradford city and national context.

The aim of the report is to present an overview of the costs and benefits of this project from the perspective of new social priorities in the housing world and its difficulties with the most marginal tenants.

The report is available to download at http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/case/cr/CASEreport55.pdf

Book Launch
DIY Community Action: Neighbourhood Problems and Community Self-Help

Liz Richardson will launch her new publication 'DIY Community Action' - as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science - with a seminar at LSE on -

Wednesday 12th March     4.30pm to 6.00pm

- in the Michio Morishima Conference Room (R505), 5th Floor, Research Laboratory, 10 Portugal Street, London WC2A 2HD.

This event is FREE but booking is essential.

An informal drinks reception will follow this event.

To request a seat for this event, please contact
Anna Tamas Email: a.tamas@lse.ac.uk; Tel: +44(0)20-7955-6562.

About the Book
How people can be persuaded to take more control of their own lives continues to be a subject of policy and academic debate, and the contribution of active citizens to improving societal well-being is high across different policy agendas. But the promotion of community self-help raises a wide range of questions for people working in neighbourhoods, for policy makers, for politicians, and for residents themselves about how we promote engagement, what would motivate people to become active, and more fundamentally about the ongoing relevance and value of community activity.

DIY Community Action offers thought-provoking answers to these questions, based on detailed real-life evidence from over 100 community groups, each trying to combat neighbourhood problems. It presents a lively challenge to the existing thinking on contested debates, and proposes ways forward for community building.

This timely publication is an engaging resource for policy makers, practitioners, academics, students and general readers interested in exploring community engagement and active citizenship.

Liz Richardson: DIY Community Action: Neighbourhood problems and community self-help. Bristol: Policy Press.

Paperback £23.99 ISBN 9781847420848 ---- Hardback £65.00 ISBN 9781847420855

To order this book please see www.policypress.org.uk

Book Launch
City Survivors: Bringing up children in disadvantaged neighbourhoods

Anne Power will launch her new publication City Survivors with a seminar at LSE on -

Thursday 22nd November

4.30pm to 6.00pm

- in the CEP Conference Room (R405), 4th Floor, Research Laboratory, 10 Portugal Street, London WC2A 2HD.

This event is FREE but booking is essential.

An informal drinks reception will follow the seminar.

To request a seat for this event, please contact:
Anna Tamas email: a.tamas@lse.ac.uk, tel: +44(0)20-7955-6562.

About the book:
City Survivors is based on yearly visits over seven years to two hundred families living in four highly disadvantaged city neighbourhoods, two in East London and two in Northern inner and outer city areas. Twenty four families explain over time from the inside, how neighbourhoods in and of themselves directly affect family survival. These stories convey powerful messages from parents about the problems they want tackled, and the things that would help.

The book offers original and in-depth, qualitative evidence in a readable and accessible form that will be invaluable to policy-makers, practitioners, university students, academics and general readers interested in the future of families in cities.

Anne Power: City Survivors: Bringing up children in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Bristol: Policy Press.

Paperback £21.99 ISBN 9781847420497 ---- Hardback £60.00 ISBN 9781847420503

To order this book please see www.policypress.org.uk

Book Launch
Jigsaw cities: Big Places, Small Spaces

Jigsaw cities: Big places, small spaces

14 March 2007

by Anne Power and John Houghton

This new book explores Britain's intensely urban and increasingly global communities as interlocking pieces of a complex jigsaw; they are hard to see apart yet they are deeply unequal. How did our major cities become so divided? How do they respond to housing and neighbourhood decay?

Jigsaw Cities examines these issues using Birmingham, Britain's second largest city, as a model of pioneering urban order and as a victim of brutal Modernist planning.

Through a close look at major British cities, using Birmingham as a case study, the book explores:

• the origins of Britain's acute urban decline and sprawling exodus;
• the reasons why "one size doesn't fit all" in cities of the future;
• the potential for smart growth, mixed communities and sustainable cities.

Based on live examples and hands-on experience, this extremely accessible book offers a unique 'insider' perspective on policy making and practical impacts. It will attract policymakers in cities and government as well as students, regeneration bodies, community organisations and environmental specialists.

Anne Power is Professor of Social Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science; Sustainable Development Commissioner responsible for regeneration and sustainable communities; member of the Government's Urban Task Force; author of books on cities, communities and marginal housing areas in the UK and abroad.

John Houghton was head of the Communities Division at the Neighbourhood Renewal Unit; a visiting research associate at CASE; and currently a Harkness scholar at the University of Minnesota. John Houghton worked as Anne Power's assistant during 2002-03 while Anne was Chair of the Independent Commission on the Future of Housing in Birmingham.

Read more at the Policy Press and download free sample chapters in Adobe PDF.

Book Launch
Twenty-five years on twenty estates: Turning the Tide?

The Policy Press has just published a new report in association with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation: Twenty-five years on twenty estates, by Rebecca Tunstall and Alice Coulter.

The report covers developments in 20 less popular and more problematic English council estates, based on four waves of research since 1980. It presents unique evidence of the impact of 25 years of social change and policy from Thatcher to Blair, a period in which the number of British council homes has halved, and social inequality and the standard of public services have become key political issues.

Read more at the Policy Press or download a FREE pdf version from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

Policy Press titles can also be ordered from:

Marston Book Services
PO Box 269
Abingdon
Oxon
OX14 4YN
Tel: +44 (0)1235 465500
Email: direct.orders@marston.co.uk