1 Helen Jarvis Newcastle University REVISED SUBMISSION to Compass (Social Geography) January 2015 PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE WITHOUT PERMISSION Community-led housing and ‘slow’ opposition to corporate development: citizen participation as common ground? Introduction Recent years have witnessed renewed interest in the transfer of power to local citizens and community groups as a means to fulfil locally defined housing needs and aspirations. To appreciate what is in effect a popular as well as a political reengagement with ‘pro- community’ place-making (Power 2011: 45), we need to acknowledge general and specific trends of ‘localism’ that intersect with ‘community-led’ and ‘slow’ ideologies. Making these connections helps explain why these umbrella terms suggest a consensus of understanding that is in practice contested and differentiated. The notion of ‘localism’ is evident on a number of intersecting geographic scales; as the currency of a groundswell of popular social movements seeking to reverse the decline of civic influence in local concerns; as a platform for issue-specific community-led development; and as the substance and rhetoric of national planning and housing policy frameworks. It is important to differentiate general from particular localism, especially with respect to planning and housing policy. In the UK, for instance, opportunities for community and non-profit housing vary across four different jurisdictions of devolved policy-making- England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland (see Maclennan and O’Sulivan 2013).