This book has explored social mix policies in a number of countries and in terms of policy expectations and outcomes. In spite of the differences in national policy contexts, housing systems, city and neighbourhood characteristics, the overwhelming conclusion of this review is that social mix policies are largely ineffective in enhancing the welfare of the poorest urban residents, and in some cases detrimental to the welfare of the urban poor. A senior policy figure on mixed communities in the US – Bruce Katz – voiced that he had no idea why they had gone for mixed communities policy in the US and that it should not have been applied in Europe! Why, then, have governments continued with this policy? There are three reasons: first, it coincided with a neoliberal climate; second, mixed communities is a faith-based policy (Cheshire, 2009) and has assumed the status of a mantra (Bolt and van Kempen, 2008); and third, once a policy or programme gains momentum, it is hard to step back from it, although maybe the current financial crisis will mark a turning point here.

So where do we go from here in policy and theory terms? As van Criekingen argues at the end of his chapter (see Chapter Twelve), policy should concentrate on ‘the upward social mobility of the incumbent population in working-class neighbourhoods, rather than the promotion of the spatial mobility of middle-class newcomers – that is, fighting poverty, discrimination and social insecurity rather than moving the poor’. It will be a challenge to persuade policy makers to do this given that (as Ley argues in Chapter Six) the interventions in liberal welfare states in the 1960s and 1970s have given way to a more marketised neoliberal environment, but it is a challenge we must take up. In so doing we are not saying that large spatially segregated concentrations of poverty (the starting concern of social mix policies historically) do not exacerbate the problems of poverty; rather we are saying that such problems are tackled more fruitfully through a more direct connection to power and investment of resources. This connection can be at the level of the neighbourhood itself.