Policy Review Section

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Abstract
In this issue of the Policy Review Section, Doug Hart, of the Department of Land Management and Development, University of Reading, summarizes the results of a study into the experience of the evaluation of urban regeneration policies in the United States over the past decade. Alongside a cutback in urban regeneration programmes during the Reagan Presidency, methods of evaluation underwent substantial changes reflecting, amongst other things, a shift towards greater concern with value for money considerations and a move from formal large scale evaluation techniques often undertaken by consultants to more short term and specific methods carried out ‘in house’ by the government agencies themselves. In the second article, James McEldowney, of the Department of the Environment, Northern Ireland, examines the evaluation requirements resulting from recent changes in the European Communities Structural Funds which amongst other things have involved a further shift from a project-based to a programmed-based approach. In the context of the particular complexities of European funding, McEldowney considers the practical problems of evaluation and presents a summary of three recent attempts to appraise community programmes.