From planned communities to deregulated spaces : Social and tenurial change in high quality state housing

This paper explores social and tenurial change on two estates of high quality state housing in the south of England. In doing so it offers a corrective to dominant contemporary perceptions of state housing as stigmatised policy failures and engages with wider debates about social change and tenure diversification. The paper argues that while tenurial distinctions are evident they are less significant than might be assumed from contemporary debates. Residents are as likely to construct narratives of neighbourhood change around life course and lifestyle as around the growth of home ownership. The paper also offers a further contribution to literature which has tracked the social consequences of privatisation policies in the state housing sector in Britain. The research involved unstructured interviews with 50 residents and key actors on the two estates which were examples of early British post-war state housing. Using administrative files, tenants and owners were drawn from different time periods, including both original and new residents. The research also involved archival work and a postal survey.