Communities in the balance: The reality of social exclusion on housing estates

The research:

• investigates the attitudes, aspirations and values of socially excluded residents and their views on the most pressing contemporary social issues;
• gives a voice to residents vulnerable to social exclusion on troubled estates and analyses their interaction with their estate, neighbourhood and wider community;
• provides evidence of the critical importance of mainstream public services in tackling social exclusion.

Communities in the balance provides a powerful and evocative account of the nature of social exclusion, in the words of those living with it. This account is set within a wider analysis of the social exclusion debate, and a consideration of the neighbourhood dimension to social exclusion.