Soft spaces and soft outcomes : experiences from City Strategy on local partnership working and measures of success

Duncan Adam, Anne Green

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This article uses the concepts of ?soft spaces? and ?soft outcomes? previously developed in relation to the study of local economic development and planning and applies them to the related, but not identical, field of localised welfare-to-work initiatives. The specific example of the City Strategy initiative in Great Britain provides evidence of these concepts in action. This initiative foregrounded the importance of local partnership working whereby various stakeholders joined together to operate in soft space to achieve commonly agreed goals. The article considers how local partnerships operate in soft space and the appropriate measures of success to be used when assessing the efficacy of their interventions. It is argued that both ?soft outcomes? and ?hard outcomes? can be used to understand success; but that assessment of soft spaces only in terms of ?hard outcomes? is far from comprehensive.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1514-1531
Number of pages18
JournalEnvironment and Planning A
Volume48
Issue number8
Early online date6 Apr 2016
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jul 2016

Keywords

  • City Strategy
  • Soft spaces
  • Soft outcomes
  • Local partnerships
  • Welfare-to-work
  • Worklessness
  • Cities

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