AREA-BASED STRATEGICS FOR TACKLING URBAN JOBLESSNESS: THE ROLE OF ENTERPRISE IN ‘MAKING BELFAST WORK’ MARK HART and LYNDA M WHITE NORTHERN IRELAND ECONOMIC RESEARCH CENTRE Area-Based Strategies for Tackling Urban Joblessness: The Role of Enterprise in ‘Making Belfast Work’

Urban joblessness and inner city deprivation are a feature of the late twentieth century throughout the developed world. This paper considers the effectiveness of spatiallytargeted programmes in creating employment in deprived urban areas. It begins by discussing the twin themes of “enterprise” and “localism” which have dominated the UK policy response to urban problems in the 1990s and goes on to examine the Making Belfast Work programme, an initiative to relieve multiple deprivation in the worst areas of one of Europe’s most disadvantaged cities. An in-depth study of the enterprise component of this strategy during the period 1992-95 leads to the conclusion that it achieved little to improve the economic circumstances of the city’s most deprived residents.