Anne Power

Professor of Social Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science

Anne Power is a graduate in Modern Languages from the University of Manchester. She obtained the graduate Diploma in Social Administration at the London School of Economics in 1964 and an MA in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin in 1966. She taught in Tanzania, then worked with Martin Luther King’s ‘End Slums’ campaign in Chicago in 1966. On her return to Britain she was Warden at the Africa Centre in London from 1966-67 and then Friend’s Neighborhood House in Islington between 1967 and 1972 where she organized community based projects.

From 1972 to 1979 she was Coordinator of the North Islington Housing Rights Project reversing slum clearance in favor of regeneration, securing rehousing rights for ethnic minority and furnished tenants, developing estate based management and organizing tenant management co-operatives.

She was appointed national consultant to the Department for the Environment’s Priority Estates Project between 1979 and 1989 and helped local authorities in England and Wales to rescue run down estates. She also acted as advisor to the Welsh Office. In 1985 London University awarded her a PhD on the history of council housing and the emergence of unpopular estates.

In 1991, Anne Power became founding Director of the National Tenants Resource Centre, which opened in 1995 at Trafford Hall, Chester and provides residential training for people living and working in low-income communities.

Anne Power is Professor of Social Policy and Director of the post-graduate MSc/Diploma in Housing at the London School of Economics. Since 1987 she has been involved in European, American and international housing and urban problems and as a result has developed a new housing MSc/Diploma in international housing and social change.

In 1997, Anne Power became Deputy Director of the ESRC funded research Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE). She is responsible for research into change in poor neighborhoods, the impact of poor neighborhood conditions on families; a study of area abandonment; and evaluation of community self-help linked to training. Other research interests include European, American and international urban problems; crime; social exclusion; role of residents; design in relation to social organization; social and management problems; central / local government relations; community involvement; sustainable development.

Anne Power is a member of the government’s Housing and Urban Sounding Boards, advising Ministers on housing policy and urban matters. She is also a member of the Sustainable Development Commission, chaired by Jonathon Porritt, set up to suggest ways to reconcile the needs of the environment, the economy and society. In May 2002 she was appointed Chair of the Independent Commission of Inquiry into the Future of Council Housing in Birmingham, and produced a report, ‘One size doesn’t fit all’. She was awarded a CBE in June 2000 for services to regeneration and promotion of resident participation.