This paper starts from the premise that Britain’s inner city initiative is an important innovation in urban policy which has considerable potential for ameliorating living conditions in inner areas. It will be suggested, however, that the initiative is in danger of being side tracked away from its key objectives of redirecting policy, concentrating on meeting the needs of inner area residents and effecting change in the institutions of urban government. These were the three guiding principles of the Labour government’s bold White Paper of June 1977 which asserted that: ‘the time has now come to give the inner areas an explicit priority in social and economic policy, even at a time of particular stringency in public resources’. The incoming Conservative government of May 1979, whilst introducing marked changes in emphasis and procedure, has accepted the need for special programmes for inner areas and has, with some streamlining, retained the arrangement whereby seven ‘partnership’ areas and fifteen ‘programme’ authorities prepare annually rolled forward Inner Area Programmes (lAPs). There is a burgeoning literature on inner city problems and policies but much of it is specific to particular localities or particular policy questions.