The HUMAN CITY institute (HCi) is a Birmingham-based, independent and charitable research initiative. Founded in 1997, HCi grew to manage experimental 'human neighbourhood' projects and hold 'hearings' that explored what is meant by a 'human city'.

Today, HCi has gone back to its roots as a community-centered research agency exploring the dynamics of 'human cities' and promoting solutions to urban problems.

HCi has developed a thematic research programme that covers:

Creating the Human City ~ covering the specific policy areas of housing, planning, urban regeneration, health and social care.

Faith, Ethnicity and Social Exclusion ~ exploring the interrelationships between faith, ethnicity and social exclusion, cohesion, integration, and captial.

Social Investment, Enterprise and Innovation ~ quantifying how innovative social investment and enterprises impact on disadvantaged communities.

Chronicling Human Neighbourhoods ~ recording and promoting innovative examples of human neighbourhood development and projects.

Human City index ~ capturing key data to compare the extent and nature of 'human cities' in England.

A varied research programme is currently underway. Key topic examples are:

Social housing tenants, inequalities in wealth and redistribution of assets.

Needs assessments of the Somali, Vietnamese and Chinese communities.

Quality of community life and resident aspirations survey

Mapping of faith groups and social exclusion nationally, regionally and locally.

Mapping faith and disparities in health in Birmingham.

Case studies of human neighbourhood projects, sites and initiatives that open windows on good practice.

Welcome to our new website, marking a change in emphasis for HCi after a period where management of neighbourhood projects was our core activity. Our current plans are to influence policy areas that impact on the viability and sustainability of our towns, cities and neighbourhoods through innovative research that actively involves people and communities.

Our new three year Research Programme addresses urban social exclusion, issues relating to faith and ethnicity, and social investment approaches to tackling neighbourhood disadvantage.