Anecdote is the singular of data

Why put together yet another debate about the importance or irrelevance of place in society? The superficial reason for doing this here was that in Autumn 2000 I was asked to referee a paper by Andrew McCulloch (2001) which both impressed and concerned me. I was impressed by the amount of work and skill which had gone into this paper, as with much of the analysis of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) coming out of Essex University. I was also concerned with some of the underlying assumptions and implicit beliefs expressed through this and in similar recent papers using the BHPS. The six short articles which follow and McCulloch's reply reflect much of the admiration for his work and skill, a great deal of support but also much dissent. I summarise them next; however, they are all kept short enough to be summaries of a much wider debate in themselves. The authors were chosen as being leading researchers in social science, ranging from the study of deprivation and poverty, to employment, housing, voting, area effects, health, multilevel modeling, and other similar subjects and techniques. They were limited (as am I) to only a few words and half a dozen references. Among a number of the critics, the paper raised the issue of whether area-based initiatives are a valid policy option for government today. George Smith, Michael Noble, and Gemma Wright suggest that McCulloch is on shaky ground in arguing against area-based policy initiatives; in contrast to his claims they suggest that we do need such policies and that we do not need further evidence that area effects exist to justify area-based initiatives. In further contrast, Roger Burrows and Johnathan Bradshaw argue that there is little evidence that area-based policies alleviate poverty. However, they too believe there is not enough èvidence' in McCulloch's paper to support his general conclusionsöwith which they sympathise. Both of the above papers argue for longitudinal studies. Heather Joshi, a long-term advocate and How much does place matter? Environment and Planning A 2001, volume 33, pages 1335 ^ 1369