Counting cranes on city skylines is a good measure of urban change. Over the past ten years, British cities have improved their economic and social performance (ODPM 2006b). But many challenges remain, even in the big provincial cities at the heart of the UK's urban renaissance. In particular, visible recovery has been largely confined to city centres. Many nearby neighbourhoods - inner suburbs - show little improvement.

Inner suburbs are characterised by social and economic deprivation, poor environments, poor health and high crime (Dorling and Thomas 2005, Stillwell and Shepherd 2004). These multiple problems have been of concern for many years (Lawless 1981, Archbishop of Canterbury's Commission on Urban Priority Areas 1985, Hausner 1987). As cities have improved, many urban housing sub-markets have experienced prolonged growth, but many of the least desirable inner suburbs have not been part of the upturn: here we are counting not cranes, but boarded-up houses.