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A <br />''1 <br />�(�I11��iC�lClltil�C'�'Cl��lil�iUl��1(�(��j �IU��I('�: C�i�ll��tC(CII/I'1" �i'C�III(' <br />� <br />Even Eastern Europe is not exempt from these trends. For example, in spite of <br />distinct differences in urban densities, the availability of automobiles, and historical <br />planned vs. market conditions, the location behaviour of Dresden households is very <br />similar to that observed in U.S. data (ibid.). <br />In the United States, in the 1980's, the concept of an urban `ghetto underclass' <br />was developed to describe the residents of urban inner-city areas with high concentrations <br />of poverty, unemployment, crime, teen-age pregnancy and lone motherhood. Researchers <br />dismiss the idea that there are ghettos in the large European cities on the same scale and <br />segregated manner that they exist in larger American cities. In Europe, instead, during the <br />latter part of the 1990's the concept of social exclusion was at the centre in discussions of <br />issues like poverty, unemployment, and ethnic minorities (Glennerster et al. 1999, Larsen <br />2001). Concentration of socially excluded people in certain districts has occurred in <br />almost every major European city (Robson 1988; Larsen 2001; Richardson and Gordon <br />1999; Glennerster et al. 1999; Carley 1990; Priemus 1998; Randolph and Judd 1999; <br />Townsend 1987). Globalisation, migration and social exclusion are often the keywords <br />employed to explain this process of spatial concentration of especially long-term <br />unemployed, immigrant and ethnic minority communities (Larsen 2001). <br />2.3.1. The British Experience <br />Extensive evidence of decline is reported in British cities with inner-city <br />disinvestment and abandonment of physical urban fabrics particularly in northern cities <br />such as Newcastle, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, and Manchester (Keenan, Lowe & <br />Spencer 1999). On the other hand demand for inner city housing remains strong in cities <br />such as London and Dublin. According to Keenan et al. the decline in inner city housing <br />is closely related to economic restructuring, which has resulted in the emergence of <br />housing abandonment particularly in areas of public housing stock. <br />According to Carley (1999), more than three million British homes (about one in <br />seven) are in poor condition, lacking in basic amenities or in need of major repairs. Many <br />of these homes are in run-down neighbourhoods of degraded environmental quality, <br />whose residents suffer from poverty and social and economic alienation. The loss of <br />around one million industrial jobs in British urban areas, most in the past twenty years, <br />made conditions worse in these neighbourhoods. British run-down neighbourhoods <br />house about five million people, many of whom are unemployed, single parents, elderly <br />or suffering some form of social deprivation. In some of them, the prenatal mortality rate <br />for children is twice the national average and the death rate 30 per cent greater (ibid.). <br />Glasgow is an interesting example as decline has been happening there equally in <br />inner-city and suburban areas of the city. Often the peripheral estates represented the <br />most serious set of problems facing the city, with majar concentrations of socially and <br />economically disadvantaged groups. Half of the most deprived areas in Glasgow are now <br />located in the peripheral estates (ibid.). <br />The 1951 Census indicated that 51 per cent of all Glasgow families lived in 1 or 2 <br />room flats (ibid.). The solutions pursued to tackle overcrowding included: overspill, <br />particularly to new towns; comprehensive redevelopment of inner-city areas, replacing <br />12 <br />