The widest definition of an Inner City is "An area found in older cities surrounding the CBD, where the prevailing economic, social, and environmental conditions pose severe problems"

Although the inner city areas have been identified as having problems for many years, it was not until 1988 that Margaret Thatcher put forward the "Action for Cities" campaign. She realised that something had to be done to improve the conditions, and took the problems found in the inner cities as the reasons why the re-development schemes were necessary. When launching the scheme Thatcher said "In partnership with the people and the private sector, we intend to step up the pace of renewal and regeneration to make our inner cities much better places to live, work, and invest". The inner city programme specified 6 aims:

- to enhance job prospects and the ability of residents to compete for them

- to bring land and buildings back into use

- to encourage private sector investment

- to encourage self-help and improve social fabric, and

The inner city needs economic investments but few new industries want to locate here partly due to the environment, and partly because the former labour force often lack relevant skills needed in the new hi-tech and service industries. So by regenerating the inner city areas they are hoping to attract new investors to locate there. These improvements are also expected to bring back some of the more affluent people who moved out to the suburbs as they could afford to commute.

The inner cities had many problems all of which linked together to form a less affluent area which was very hard to improve as to help with one problem often meant having to solve another one too.

Housing in inner city areas was poor quality and in a 1991 census it was found that over 1 million homes in the inner cities still lacked the basic amenities of bathrooms, WC's and hot water. The occupants have low incomes and are often elderly, young

Or consist of very large families leading to a high population density and over crowding. Large quantities of ethnic minorities are often found in the inner city areas such as Tower Hamlets in East London which has a very high percent

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 780
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)