This paper seeks to explain the persistence of inner-city deprivation in spite of sustained regeneration efforts, through demonstrating how urban regeneration policies are embedded in peculiar political institutional power dynamics that actually contribute to the further disempowerment of the already disempowered groups in inner cities, while the urban elites have been further empowered by the political institutional settings of post-war urban regeneration policies. Throughout the regeneration process, the definition of 'community' and its involvement in regeneration projects have been substantially altered. Special attention will be paid to the rise and fall of the South Bank's prominent era of community-based development and how the local power geometry has been reworked in the process. The paper discusses the pros and cons of contemporary 'partnership planning' on the South Bank.