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Urban issues have moved up the European Union's policy agenda over the past 10 years. Since the launch of the URBAN I Community Initiative (CI) in 1994, urban issues within regional policy have increasingly featured in EU policy documents. This paper presents the findings of the ex-post evaluation of the URBAN CI that was implemented from 1994 to 1999, funded by the European Commission. It shows that while URBAN-style area-based initiatives were already taking place in some member-states, in the majority of countries the URBAN CI presented an innovative way of addressing area-based urban challenges, effectively leading the way for a sea-change in thinking on urban regeneration in many member-states, both in terms of content and process. The paper concludes with some reflections on the implications of the findings for addressing urban deprivation through area-based initiatives.

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This paper explores the relationship between the increasing emphasis on the integration of social, economic, democratic and environmental objectives within planning practice and the emergence of new forms of networked governance. Using a framework which stresses the hybridity and tensions that characterise current governance arrangements, the article investigates attempts to create `sustainable communities' in the Thames Gateway, England. The analysis reveals the tensions and contradictions arising from governing the Gateway, including those between the conflicting goals of economic competitiveness and social and environmental sustainability, between horizontal, networked governance and forms of and requirements for hierarchical direction and between a focus on delivery and participatory governance. The paper concludes by reflecting on the implications of the hybridity and complexity in governance forms for the search for sustainable communities and the forms of governance `fit for purpose' in their realisation.