Cross-Sector Partnerships: City Regeneration and Social Justice Nelarine Cornelius James Wallace ABSTRACT. In this article, the ability of partnerships to generate goods that enhance the quality-of-life of socially and economically deprived urban communities is explored. Drawing on Rawl’s study on social justice [Rawls, J.: 1971, A Theory of Justice (Harvard University Press, Cambridge)] and Sen’s capabilities approach [Sen, A.: 1992, Inequality Re-Examined (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA); 1999, Development as Freedom (Oxford University Press, Oxford); 2009, The Idea of Justice (Ellen Lane, London)], we undertake an ethical evaluation of the effectiveness of different approaches to partnership activity in city neighbourhood regeneration. We focus, in particular, on their impact on the social regeneration of disadvantaged communities. Governance of cross-sector partnerships, built upon negotiated values and strong community voice, may result in a greater sense of procedural justice, as well as improvements to orderli- ness in local neighbourhoods. However, distributive jus- tice, the accumulation of, and access to, goods that enable greater participation in society, remains largely elusive within neighbourhood partnership activity. We conclude that social provision that deals fairly with the causes of disadvantage by enhancing the capabilities of local com- munities and increasing social capital is likely to be a more effective and sustainable approach for partnerships, despite being a longer-term and more costly endeavour. KEY WORDS: capabilities approach, city regeneration, community participation, cross-sector partnerships, dis- tributive justice, procedural justice, Rawls, Sen, social justice, social regeneration Introduction In order to be successful, regeneration projects operating in areas of urban deprivation have been shown to require appropriate engagement in the underlying social cause (Coulson, 2005; Robinson et al., 2005) and to involve dialogue between the stakeholders (Blake et al., 2008; Diamond, 2002). It therefore necessitates interaction between regen- eration partners, the community, mostly through third sector organisations (TSOs), and sustainable social regeneration; without sustainable regenera- tion, the provision will have no permanency and will not lead to the alleviation of deprivation (Baeten, 2000; Corcoran, 2006; Hull, 2000; Rogers, 2005). However, partnership roles in social regeneration have been criticised, especially for provision for the long-term disadvantaged (Corcoran, 2006; Hull, 2000; Rogers, 2005). Difficulties have also arisen due to interactions between tri-sector partners, often as a result of differences in power whereby the private and public sector partners are seen as dominant players versus the relatively inexperienced and poorly funded TSOs as the weaker (Diamond, 2010). The disparity in profit motive (with-profit for the private partner but non-profit for the public and TSO partners) and the obvious distinction between their respective ethical stances have also led to problems with sustainable social regene- ration being insufficient to address disadvantage (Diamond, 2010). The bias towards economic and environmental regeneration provision has, none- theless, advantaged the more affluent members of the community and speculating new-comers who see the ‘refurbishment’ as a welcome sign of gen- trification (Baeten, 2000; Coulson, 2005; Sandoval, 2010). As social regeneration for deprived com- munities is a form of social justice (Diamond, 2010; Robinson et al., 2005), and an act of beneficence, the emphasis on economic and environmental regeneration at the expense of social regeneration is, therefore, unjust and unethical. In this study, we evaluate the degree of social provision in past regeneration cross-sector projects, comprising private, public and third sector partners and compare these to a list of ethical considerations Journal of Business Ethics (2010) 94:71–84 Ó Springer 2011 DOI 10.1007/s10551-011-0780-6