Sustainable development is a widely used term, which has been increasingly infl uential on UK planning, housing and urban policy in recent years. Debates about sustainability no longer consider sustainability solely as an environmental concern, but also incorporate economic and social dimensions. However, while a social dimension to sustainability is widely accepted, exactly what this means has not been very clearly defi ned or agreed. This paper aims to address this disparity through a detailed exploration and defi nition of the concept of social sustainability within the urban context. The relationship between urban form and social sustainability is explored and two main dimensions of social sustainability are identifi ed and discussed in detail: equitable access and the sustainability of the community itself.

IntroductionLand-use planning is the principal policy intervention which seeks to influence the physical form of towns and cities, but to what end is this intervention directed? Over the last decade and a half,`sustainability' has come to be the overarching goal of urban planning. Sustainability emerged from an essentially environmental discourse, which pointed to the many ways in which current development might degrade the environment and compromise the heritage bequeathed to future generations (World Commission on Environmental Development, 1987). Consideration of the most obvious examples of the relationship between these environmental impacts and urban form, notably around energy use and the need to travel, has led to a strong association in planning thinking between sustainability and more compact forms of urban development (CEC, 1990;Jenks et al, 1996). However, consideration of the concept of sustainability and its role in policy has led many to seek to broaden the concept to embrace economic and social dimensions, as well as the original environmental concerns.This paper is concerned with the relationship between residential density, and the associated types of housing, and`social sustainability', as part of a wider study of sustainable urban form. (1) Adopting a definition of social sustainability informed

Planning and urban policies emphasise ‘sustainability’, but claims that ‘compact cities' are more socially sustainable and acceptable have been controversial and subject to limited empirical testing. After a brief review of the concepts and debate, we set out new empirical evidence based on household surveys linked to neighbourhood physical, map-based, and sociodemographic data for five British cities. Statistical models are developed to account for systematic variations in the main social sustainability outcomes. The results are considered both in terms of the role of particular urban form and locational measures, but also in terms of the broader patterns of effects of packages of measures. Outcomes relating to residential satisfaction, stability, neighbourhood environment, and safety are all shown to be lower in higher density/central places, but it is also shown that a good deal of this apparent effect is due to social and demographic factors. Interaction with neighbours and participation in groups is better at medium densities, controlling for other factors, while use of local services is, as expected, greater in denser, more central locations. These findings indicate that compact cities are not ‘win-win’ on all dimensions of sustainability but, rather, that reductions in transport emissions will have to be weighed against social criteria. In addition, urban form has different aspects, which have differing social effects, and this knowledge could inform the future design of ‘smarter’ urban environments.

This paper interrogates pathways into multiple exclusion homelessness (MEH) in the UK and, informed by a critical realist theoretical framework, explores the potential causal processes underlying these pathways. Drawing on an innovative multistage quantitative survey, it identifies five experiential clusters within the MEH population, based on the extent and complexity of experiences of homelessness, substance misuse, institutional care, street culture activities and adverse life events. It demonstrates that the most complex forms of MEH are associated with childhood trauma. It also reveals that the temporal sequencing of MEH-relevant experiences is remarkably consistent, with substance misuse and mental health problems tending to occur early in individual pathways, and homelessness and a range of adverse life events typically occurring later. The strong inference is that these later-occurring events are largely consequences rather than originating causes of MEH, which has important implications for the conceptualisation of, and policy responses to, deep exclusion.

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The scale of the cuts to local government finance, coupled with increasing demand for services, has led to unprecedented 'budget gaps' in council budgets. Arguably, two competing narratives of the trajectory of local government have emerged in which contrasting futures are imagined for the sector-a positive story of adaptation and survival and more negative one of residualisation and marginalisation. Drawing on case study evidence from three English local authorities, the paper distinguishes and provides examples of three strategic approaches to managing austerityefficiency, retrenchment and investment. It demonstrates how and why the balance of these strategies has shifted between the early and later phases of austerity and considers the extent to which the evidence of the case studies provide support for either the survival or marginalisation narrative. The paper concludes by arguing that a third narrative-responsibilisation-captures more fully the trajectory of local government in England.

Is the common pressure group and media refrain that 'we are all two pay cheques away from homelessness' justified by the evidence? Drawing on multivariate analysis of two cross-sectional datasets (the 'Scottish Household Survey' and the UK-wide 'Poverty and Social Exclusion') Survey and one longitudinal data-set (the 'British Cohort Study 1970'), this paper provides a systematic account of the social distribution of homelessness in the UK. Informed by a critical realist explanatory framework, our analysis underlines the centrality of poverty, especially childhood poverty, to the generation of homelessness, while also demonstrating the impact of broader labour and housing market contexts, and certain demographic, personal and social support characteristics. These findings reinforce the moral imperative for policy action on homelessness, while at the same time signalling opportunities to target preventative interventions on high risk groups.

Austerity urbanism in England: the 'regressive redistribution' of local government services and the impact on the poor and marginalised. Environment and Planning A, (doi:10.1177/0308518X17714797).There may be differences between this version and the published version. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite from it.http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/141300/ 2 AbstractThat contemporary austerity is being realised to a large extent in and through cities is a growing theme in urban scholarship. Similarly, the concern that the economicallymarginalised are disproportionately impacted as 'austerity urbanism' takes hold drives a significant body of research. While it is clear that substantial austerity cuts are being downloaded onto cities and their governments, however, the evidence on whether it is the most disadvantaged fractions of the urban population which suffer as a consequence remains thin. Moreover the mechanisms by which the downloading to the poor occurs are unclear. This paper identifies how austerity cuts are transmitted to the poor and marginalised in the context of severe cuts to the spending power of English local government. It identifies three transmission mechanisms and shows how these operate and with what outcomes, drawing on empirical evidence at the English national and local city levels. The paper provides robust evidence from national data sources and from in-depth, mixed-methods case studies to show that the effects of austerity urbanism are borne most heavily by those who are already disadvantaged. It also demonstrates the importance of identifying the specific mechanisms by which downloading on to the poor occurs in particular national contexts, and how this contributes to understanding, and potentially resisting, the regressive logic of austerity urbanism.