The research boroughs and their estates

Abstract

This chapter summarises the London research boroughs and estates. The research focusses on fourteen council-built housing estates in seven boroughs: Barnet, Hackney, Haringey, Lambeth, Newham, Southwark and Tower Hamlets. Six of these boroughs (except suburban Barnet) have been among the most deprived local authority areas in England for decades, and include high levels of poverty and large Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic populations, although they have also gentrified since the 1980s. The fourteen estates are analysed in terms of their local authority origins, landlords and housing tenure, and also the rationale, progress and effects of their respective regeneration schemes. Reference is made to entrepreneurial borough strategies where relevant. In addition to the seven main boroughs, less extensive research was undertaken at five council estates in four supplementary boroughs: Brent, Camden, Waltham Forest and Westminster. The chapter provides a socio-demographic summary of the estate resident interviewees divided into four housing tenures: social tenants, Right-to-Buy owner-occupiers, temporary non-secure tenants, and owner-occupiers who bought their homes on the open market. The interviewees broadly reflect the dominant multi-ethnic working-class population of London’s social housing estates, albeit weighted towards elderly and long-term residents.