Exploring Social Geography, first published in 1984, offers a challenging yet comprehensive introduction to the wealth of empirical research and theoretical debate that has developed in response to the advent of a social approach to the subject. The argument emphasises the essentially spatial structure of social interaction, and includes a succinct discussion of geographical research on segregation and interaction, which has combined numerical analyses and qualitative ethnographic field research. A distinctive view of social geography is adopted, inspired by the Chicago school of North America
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English This article draws on lay perspectives to question some assumptions underpinning the government's New Deal for people with long-term illness or disability in Britain. Tracing out the interaction between health and employment trajectories, interviewees challenge the idea that over-generous benefits pave the route to non-employment. They also question the emphasis on matching skills to jobs as a pathway back to work. People experiencing ill-health do not lack the incentive to work and they are likely to be forced, rather than lured, into pensions and onto benefits. The New Deal aims to enhance labour supply, but the problems people experience are more about the organisation of work and the limited demand for their skills.
Research on the practical problems of allocating homes according to need has recently been eclipsed by heated debate on the privatisation of public housing. In the wake of the British government's new commitment to the idea of state-subsidised accommodation, this paper reconsiders the problem of discretion in effecting welfare transfers. It explores how nine local authority housing departments process applications from people with health problems and mobility needs. We argue, contrary to the prevailing wisdom, that discretion is inevitable, necessary and often desirable when assessing housing needs and matching needy applicants to homes. Neither total market freedom nor complete bureaucratic constraint seem likely to solve the problem with social housing. However, an approach balancing unavoidable discretion with rigorous accountability might be a fruitful way forward.
There is growing concern among policy makers and the public about the well-documented increase in homelessness in late twentieth century Britain. This concern is fuelled by accumulating evidence that homelessness is hazardous to health, and by the discovery that homeless people often have limited access to primary medical care. There are, moreover, many very real ways in which homelessness is a public health issue and a source of health inequalities. Nevertheless, the aim of this paper is to argue that the health profile of homeless people is substantially a housing issue: one whose urgency may be compromised by the increasing tendency to 'medicalise' the problem of homelessness and health.
The concept of 'special needs' is one with which all housing practitioners and housing policy analysts will be familiar. It is a concept which is increasingly the touchstone for state involvement in housing and it is a label which can unlock the door to resources for many groups of people such as 'the elderly', 'the mentally handicapped' and 'the physically disabled'. The objectives of this paper are to examine the 'special needs' concept by analysing its role in the targetting of housing policy. The impact of the 'special needs' approach is assessed both in terms of its capacity to deliver the goods for 'special' groups and in terms of the implications of the approach for the impact of state intervention in the provision of housing and welfare. The argument throughout is that the 'special needs' approach has brought some substantial material gains to the groups it serves but that these achievements have been secured at the cost of inflexibility in service provision, the relative exclusion of 'special' groups from mainstream society and the increasing stigmatisation of such groups due to the stereotypical images their 'special' designation conveys. Finally, two strategies of reform are considered: the incremental approach which aims to widen and expand the range of groups eligible for special provision; and a radical, strategy which challenges some key tenets of the 'special needs' approach and provides a more 'universalising' alternative.
