Local Government and Urban Policy

Abstract

Many, if not all, of the initiatives and policies we have reviewed in the preceding chapters have had an effect on local government. In some cases, local authorities have been intimately involved in the development and carrying-out of policy. In other cases, policies, or their consequences, have been imposed upon local authorities. In either case there have often been major consequences involving the reorientation of local authority activity. This was particularly the case during the Thatcher years (Rhodes, 1988; Moon and Parnell, 1989); there was a major restructuring of central-local relations, with the powers of the centre being generally, but often not without cost, enhanced at the expense of the local government.