Vision and Reality: Community Involvement in Irish Urban Regeneration

Abstract

This paper examines the processes and outcomes of community involvement in six Irish urban regeneration case studies, three in Dublin and three in Belfast. The findings are part of a wider study using a Complex Adaptive Systems perspective to analyse public sector decision-making. Key points included: (1) the community ‘vision’ of the regeneration as an emergent property, which converged towards the vision held by the implementing agencies in the four most successful programmes; and (2) the identification of three features that contribute to non-linear (unpredictable) behaviour: a history of community involvement, the availability of resources, and the intervention of key individuals at crisis points.