The decision in the early 1990s to cut back on the building of public housing intensified the already dire shortage of affordable housing and increased the marginalisation of the sector. To be eligible for public housing, new entrants usually have to be in ‘greatest need’. This study argues that the shift in the eligibility criteria for accessing public housing means that public housing estates increasingly reflect what Loïc Wacquant calls ‘advanced urban marginality’. The article assesses whether the features of advanced urban marginality that are identified by Wacquant capture and can be usefully used to analyse the shifts and contemporary characteristics of public housing. The article draws on existing data and in-depth interviews with 33 older (aged more than 65 years) public housing tenants in Sydney, Australia, to analyse the residualisation of public housing using the features of advanced marginality identified by Wacquant – ‘wage labour as a vector of social instability and life insecurity’, ‘functional disconnection from macroeconomic trends’, ‘territorial fixation and stigmatisation’, ‘spatial alienation and the dissolution of place’, ‘loss of hinterland’ and ‘social fragmentation and symbolic splintering’. The study concludes that although Wacquant’s analysis is useful and captures much of what has occurred in public housing estates in Sydney, in many instances, public housing remains a source of pride for its tenants and provides them with the basis for a good life.

This paper presents the findings of an empirical study conducted with local enforcement agents in two areas in England regarding the implementation of the anti-social behaviour injunction which succeeded the anti-social behaviour order (ASBO). These findings shed light on the procedure followed by local enforcement agents when dealing with an incident of anti-social behaviour. The data presented suggests that despite the recent legislative amendments, much of the regulation of anti-social behaviour still takes place in the ‘shadows’ with local enforcement agents utilising a range of informal interventions before applying to court for the issue of an injunction. Moreover, it is argued that despite the repeal and replacement of the ASBO by what appears to be a purely civil measure, many of the criticisms raised about the order and its potential misuse remain largely unaddressed.

This article examines how intensive family interventions in England since 1997, including the Coalition government's Troubled Families programme, are situated in a contemporary problem figuration of ‘anti-social’ or ‘troubled’ families that frames and justifies the utilisation of different models of intensive family intervention. The article explores how techniques of classification and estimation, combined with the controversial use of ‘research’ evidence in policy making, are situated within a ‘rational fiction’ that constructs ‘anti-social’ families in particular ways. The article illustrates how this problem figuration has evolved during the New Labour and Coalition administrations in England, identifying their similarities and differences. It then presents findings from a study of intensive family intervention strategies and mechanisms in a large English city to illustrate how this national level discourse and policy framework relates to developing localised practice, and the tensions and ambiguities that arise.

Intensive family intervention projects have become an increasingly prominent mechanism within anti-social behaviour and social policy programmes in the UK and are supported, in principle, by the new coalition government. They have also been the subject of considerable academic controversy within the evaluative and critical literature. This article attempts to inform continuing debates about the purpose and effects of these projects by conceptualising the contexts within which interactions between projects and families occur; classifying the component aspects of roles and support provided; and presenting a three-part typology of potential outcomes from project interventions.