Financing

Introduction

While deprived neighbourhoods often suffer from neglect and unfair share of services delivered by public authorities, simply getting a bigger share of public funding is not an aim of regeneration. To achieve economic sustainability of neighbourhood development one must understand the nature of objectives and motivation of the public governance system that may impel the stakeholders to provide more resources for concerted activities of regeneration and afterwards. The authorities may not be ready for devolution of responsibilities and decision making to the neighbourhood. The stakeholders may lack capacity to take more responsibility for gaining more support, as their ultimate goal is to improve the quality of their life, not to expand activities.

Money matters, but it matters only if used sensibly. To put the funding to efficient use, the effort must approximate public governance’s and individual stakeholder’s objectives over a sustainable future of deprived neighbourhoods, developing local capacity to overtake the engine of development from public effort to local resources in the neighbourhood.

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