Positive power

"He was a very inspiring, dedicated man," enthuses Power, recounting her memories of meeting the civil rights campaigner when she was a 25-year-old student. "His influence was immense. His commitment to nonviolence, to helping those on the edge of society, to breaking down racial barriers, to working for the greater good of humanity were a tremendous inspiration."

Power met King in Chicago when she worked on the End Slums campaign, a drive for black families to live in decent neighbourhoods. Power, who had moved to America to study an MA at the University of Wisconsin, helped to lobby city officials to invest in regenerating ghettos.

She had already spent a year teaching English in Tanzania before she arrived in the USA and her experiences in both countries honed her interest in social policy and housing issues. "Tanzania was fantastic," she beams. "It taught me an enormous amount about different cultures, different approaches to family life, to child rearing, to education. I loved the country, I spent a lot of time with the families of my students – and I learned to speak Swahili."

Back in London in the early 1970s, Power's experiences in the USA and Tanzania led to a role as coordinator of the Islington housing rights project, where she championed rehousing rights for minority ethnic tenants. Her interest in race-related and regeneration issues has continued. In the last 13 years she has written 10 books and publications.

Power adds that another impetus for her interest in housing was her own experience of living in a regeneration area in Holloway, north London, in the 1960s. "I personally experienced how awful it was to have big decisions made around you over which you felt you had no control. I also saw the agony that was caused to the families whose lives were disrupted over many years from big regeneration decisions."

Power's character is at odds with the image initially evoked by her intimidating CV. Relaxed and chatty, she is refreshingly free of the jargon and stilted conversation beloved by many academics of her generation. And the state of her office at the London School of Economics comes as a shock – papers are strewn on the floor, a mind-boggling number of pamphlets and manuscripts are piled precariously high on a table, and a tray holding mugs and a kettle perches on a chair by the door. At best it is creative chaos – at worst, total disorder.

Power casually dismisses any attempts to pigeonhole either her personal reputation or her work. "I have no idea what people think of me. I'm sure there are very strong views; some people probably like me and other people probably don't."

People who are in a lot of difficulty themselves are often the most generous, as long as somebody gives them a chance

A criticism offered by one of her peers was that Power has a tendency to be too London-focused in her work. She is surprised at the accusation. "I find that really odd," she remarks. "I come from the North and I've done a lot of work in Northern cities. I think I am one of the few London-based housing people who asks: 'Why are you only screaming about the shortage of homes in the South? Why aren't you screaming about the oversupply of houses in the rest of the country and the problems of abandonment and falling values?'"

Power is on Birmingham's housing liaison panel, which was set up to study how the city can meet its housing needs after its stock transfer defeat in April. She strongly believes that more trust should be placed in communities: "My experience is that people who are in a lot of difficulty themselves are often the most generous, as long as somebody gives them a chance to think through what's happening in their areas."

She argues that the cause of racial disturbances is often that people in places like Bradford are not kept informed about what is happening to their areas. Power says the government's programme of dispersing asylum seekers around the country, for example, is fundamentally problematic: "You can't assume that a community that is already beleaguered by low job rates and high poverty, with lots of social problems, will automatically understand why their very needy community is being asked to take on what is a significant responsibility, without anybody brokering it with them."

The government's regeneration agenda is admirable, says Power, but she has reservations about how neighbourhood renewal is tackled. "The idea of social cohesion and supporting teams, all those things are incredibly positive when they are done properly. But the gap is in how you organise a neighbourhood and the services that go in it so they hit the ground with the impact that's needed – I don't think we've got that sorted yet."

Power, who was awarded her CBE for services to regeneration and her work on tenant participation, advocates a "vehicle for neighbourhood management" and believes that fundamental issues which affect the community are things as simple as where bus stops are located, whether the children are safe once they walk out of the school gates, and speed controls.

Currently, her biggest worry is that cities feel "family unfriendly" and therefore people move away from the inner city and its associated problems of crime, noise and pollution. "What I want from society, from local authorities and from the government is more handing-down of responsibility and the ability to make things work. At the end of the day you've got to have a lot of different people within different structures and different organisations trying to tackle the problems we have got."