Fixing poor communities': public housing tenants, front-line bureaucrats and community improvement programmes

In advanced liberal democracies, poor communities are subject to high levels of scrutiny and intervention by the state. Ostensibly, the intention of these interventions is to mitigate the impact of concentrated socio-economic disadvantage. They consume significant state resources and their legitimacy and effectiveness are the subject of continuing concern in public policy debate. This thesis is a case study that examines the ways in which residents and front-line professionals from four inner-city public housing estates in Melbourne, Australia experienced some of these interventionary programmes, and how the ways in which they interpreted the programmes substantially affected their outcomes.