METROPOLIS INTER CONFERENCE -
International Conference on Divided Cities and Strategies for Undivided Cities,
Göteborg, Sweden, May 25 - 26, 1998

Estates on The Edge - The Social Consequences
of Mass Housing  in Northern Europe

Dr. Anne Power
The London School of Economics and Political Science
Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE
England

Tel.: + 44 171 405 76 86
Fax: + 44 171 955 73 28
Email: a.power@lse.ac.uk

A brief overview of mass housing estates, their problems and possible remedies by Anne Power Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, Department of Social Policy London School of Economics 17^th April 1998

Contents

1. Introduction
2. Architectural Utopia
3. Organisational Problems
4. Polarisation, Race & Social Exclusion
5. Policy Response
6. Breakdown and Stabilisation
7. Localisation
8. Impact
9. Patchwork Model

Introduction

Large, modern, publicly funded estates, symbolised by high rise concrete blocks, demonstrate the problems of an over-rigid, over-ambitious, over- paternal and arrogant system of government. Mass estates are no longer valued for their success in housing families with modest incomes; rather they are used as a housing safety valve to cope with the pressures on marginal groups (Harloe, M. 1996). They epitomise the problems of transition from old-style hierarchical and universal government provision to new-style fluid, varied, enabling government roles. They, therefore, pose quite different social problems from those envisaged by their designers. However, European urban, social and housing institutions have responded to the new social problems with multi-faceted, localised interventions, in spite of the fact that the massive physical form of estates remains. This suggests a possible alternative to American urban outcomes - intense ghettoisation of the poor and near abandonment of some city neighbourhoods (Wilson, 1996). The experience of estate decline and renewal helps explain the interaction of state policies with individual lives and local structures. By tracking specific areas over time, it is possible to make sense both of the large-scale failures and the processes of intervention and support that eventually helped to restore conditions.

We base our analysis on a study of housing policy in five countries and on a survey of 20 unpopular European estates, including more detailed information on five specific cases. Five countries, France, Germany, Denmark, Ireland, and Britain were chosen because of their geographic links, their strong public involvement in housing and cities, the varied, but nonetheless common, commitment of their governments to social and urban underpinning, their common experience of large post-war housing construction and the subsequent marginalisation of difficult estates.

Architectural Utopia

Over the first post-war generation, politicians gained recognition in two main ways: breaking with the past; and adopting large-scale solutions to shortages. Nowhere was this more true than in housing, and nowhere was the potential for political success more obvious. Massive bomb damage, the movement of millions of refugees, uncontrolled influxes from countryside to towns and rapid industrial expansion all created the momentum to build on an unprecedented scale. Politicians seized upon the modernist idea of cellular, pre-cast homes in giant blocks as a visionary and futuristic solution (Quilliot & Guerrand, 1989).

The idea of obliterating squalid old slums and creating a uniform, replicable, neatly packaged solution to a post-war baby-boom, homelessness, squatting and refugee camps, as well as to surviving pre-war slums was irresistible. The massive urban dislocation that resulted was seen as a positive break with a failed past rather than a negative disruption of evolutionary urban patterns. The potential for top-down experimentation was seized upon by politicians, planners and visionary architects alike, sweeping aside the more sensitive, community based models that had created the original social housing experiments. (Harloe, 1995, Quilliot and Geurrand, 1989).

It is ironic that the most extraordinary architectural vision, designed to liberate the masses from urban misery would become wedded to the most intensely bureaucratic housing delivery system of the modern era, epitomising in many ways Max Weber's earlier and now familiar conception of modern society as a "cage" of bureaucracy, rational structures and an attempt at technocratic control. (Giddens, 1997). Table 1 shows the great expansion in social housing over the post-war period in five countries.

Notes:

(1) estimate
(2) includes eastern Lander
(3) more than double were built; a majority were sold to sitting tenants
(4) includes housing association stock

Landlords had little experience of the management of industrially constructed mass estates on which to draw. All parties to the development were largely unprepared for the consequences. Programmes, once agreed, could not easily be deflected or adapted. Rather they reduced ideas about strategic housing solutions to a uniform mould, shaping future patterns into hard, even forms from previously jumbled and uneven patterns of development. Thus, the combination of architectural ideals, state planning, social need, technical capacity, corporate structures, the profit motive and the electoral power of housing production targets provided a powerful cocktail of motives in support of the mass housing programme.

Most of the largest and clumsiest mass estates were built between 1960 and 1975, although many were planned earlier and some construction continued to the early 1980s. Initially, there was no shortage of demand for new homes due to the build-up of pressures from growing urban economies. But, our research has shown that over a relatively short period, mass housing became undesirable to families with children who preferred more conventional locations nearer to jobs and more conventional dwellings nearer to the ground. Mass housing embodied fatal misconceptions about human interaction and social control in all the countries studied. The driving theory behind the architectural form of high-rise mass estates was two-fold: that hard physical solutions would transform problematic slum conditions and that large-scale, publicly funded, building-based solutions to housing problems were achievable within rapidly evolving modern industrial societies. Both ideas proved inadequate in the face of constant new demands and ill-understood social patterns. The theory itself was based on a false premise about the pre-eminence of built form in meeting people's needs and about the power of professionals and politicians to manipulate people's lives for their betterment (Katz, 1995; DoE, 1997).

Mass housing estates were based on a dormitory model of housing devoid of economic activity. The communal layout of estates militated against personal investment or stake in the area, as well as preventing family and household control over the immediate environment. Other people's behaviour was likely to impinge in negative ways, even where the behaviour itself was not unreasonable. Family interaction, domestic noise, child supervision, teenage group dynamics were magnified many times over in mass estates because a single incident could have a strong impact on the hundreds of individuals or households who shared the common spaces. This dislocating interaction between families, generations and cultures created an unease among residents that was compounded by similar problems facing the landlords. To contain child nuisance, for example, many normal activities, such as informal play on grassed areas would be curtailed either through prohibition or through fear. The lack of a structured interface between individual and collective needs led to an erosion of responsibility on all sides and a failure to protect conditions. (BRBS,1988). Almost every aspect of modernist estate living interacted with a chain of other characteristics to cause this change.

Each element of estate life that impacted on communal conditions required a high level of supervision and control, ready acceptance by all residents of house rules, and quick, enforceable sanctions. In practice, none of these three conditions was in place at the outset. The result was the rapid decline over less than 15 years of the most extreme estates from a heralded solution to a nightmare of disorganisation and disarray (BRBS, 1988).

Housing management provides the axis for social rented housing without which tenants cannot enjoy basic domestic security or a safely maintained home environment (BRBS, 1991). This is even more true of mass housing due to the complex building form, social instability, and intensive maintenance requirements. Under both the continental and council models, management systems were not sufficiently robust or direct to withstand wider pressures on marginal communities, although our study highlighted the differences in management impact (Elie et al., 1989). Therefore, while there were divergent models of management, the underlying pressures on social housing tended to converge, as Figure 1 shows.

Figure 1 Models of social housing management

A DIVERGENCE

Source: Derived from government research in France, Germany, Denmark, Ireland, Britain (Quilliot et Guerand, 1987; BRBS, 1988; Salicath, 1987; Dublin Corporation, 1991; Power, 1993).

The organisational and management systems of all social landlords entered a new phase of decline when the social and economic context changed rapidly in the mid-1970's, leading to steep inflation, property market collapse, rising unemployment and financial crisis. This paralleled the emerging importance of large estates to poorer people, including many foreign communities that had come to Europe during the post-war boom, an era of full employment. Over less than a generation, many of the expanding low-skill jobs migrants came to fill began to disappear from building, heavy industry, textiles and public services. By the late 1970's it was often harder for the children of immigrants to find jobs than it had been for their parents as new arrivals. This shift in employment away from manual and low-skilled work affected minorities disproportionately but it also decimated the economic base of traditional white communities in older industrial areas, such as Glasgow, Lancashire, Hamburg, the Ruhr, Pas de Calais, Alsace (Gibbins, 1998).

The effect on mass housing in the collapsed industrial areas, and in the less successful neighbourhoods of metropolitan cities, was catastrophic, leaving marooned communities with insufficient work and leaving social landlords with under-used assets and deeply marginalised tenants. Through this process many estates became more racially mixed, poorer, more clearly labelled as such and, therefore, more poorly serviced and more isolated.

Policy Response

Research into the problems in 5 countries demonstrated that the decline was occurring on a large-scale, was causing serious social consequences and, at least in part, was the result of inadequate management and financial systems, as well as dislocated tenant relations (Power, 1997, 1993).

Between 1978 and 1987, the five different governments launched rescue programmes involving renewed intervention to restore physical, financial, organisational and social viability to mass estates. At least 2000 estates, comprising around 4 million dwellings, were being targeted by government programmes to rectify problems.

Governments intervened at the level of local estate communities rather than at a more generalised level because of the intensity of the localised problems, the continuing pressure to house poor people to prevent homelessness and, therefore, the need to target estates per se. The political liabilities of mass housing failure required that political action reached the grassroots. The precarious financial position of social landlords attempting to hold conditions on large estates, particularly under the arms-length Continental model, generated a sense of urgency.

The following discussion presents the findings from four estates including one case study in each country selected from Government rescue programmes. Most estates were severely affected by a wide range of problems since problems were deeply interlocking and multi-faceted. For example, the communal design of estates led to insecurity and damage which in turn created repair and policing problems, leading to a high turnover of tenants, high arrears of rent, and serious community instability. In this way, the physical style interacted with management in a way that undermined social conditions. The result was that physical, organisational, financial and social decline became intertwined and hard to separate. Between 1981 and 1985, problems in 16 of the 20 estates reached a point where landlords no longer believed they could maintain the viability of the estates. Table 2 gives the main characteristics of the survey estates. Table 3 presents the problems most commonly found on the estates at the outset of the rescue programmes and shows their generalised and cross-cutting character.

Source: Authors = visits and government research

Notes:

(a) Several continental estates had more than one landlord, all public landlords were British or Irish
(b) Most high rise estates included some medium and low rise blocks

Source: Authors = visits and interviews; government research

Notes:

(1) Government investigations and interventions began between 1983 & 1987 in all countries
(2) Assessment based on landlords and government research
(3) Greater concentrations of disadvantage than in social housing generally or in surrounding area.

There were extremely high levels of unemployment in the five cases we examined in detail. This affected racial minorities disproportionately in the four cities where minorities were already concentrated. However, some of the most difficult estates, particularly in Britain and Ireland, had virtually no ethnic minority populations. The most extreme case in Ireland experienced as serious physical, social and economic problems as the other case studies, coupled with more severe management problems, in spite of the homogeneous population and relatively integrated cultural patterns. Nonetheless, it was true that in cities with high concentrations of ethnic minority communities, these were often concentrated in the most unpopular estates, and they generally experienced greater levels of disadvantage, indirectly leading to additional pressures on over-stretched systems.

When multiple pressures accumulated without sufficient compensatory action, estate conditions spiralled out of control. A direct result of the acute management problems for landlords was a collapse in demand for housing. Selection criteria, control over disruptive behaviour and enforcement of social norms disappeared in the process. Crime in some estates rose to eight times the average for surrounding areas (Hillibrand, 1988; City of Cologne, 1989; Downes, 1989). Table 4 shows the resulting fluctuation in population and the level of empty property in the five cases during the period of acute decline and rescue.

Table 4 Showing Volume of Empty Units and Level of Annual Turnover of Tenancies in 5 Case Studies at the Point of Extreme Decline and after Rescue

Source: Authors = visits and Windsor, 1991, 1996

(1) There were no empty units to let in three estates at the time of recording.

The breakdown of order was widely feared and signs of this happening were visible in most estates. Actual disorders had broken out in 8 of the 20 estates. This provoked governments to intervene in support of new approaches as the estates were playing a precarious, but nonetheless vital, social role in housing expanding numbers of marginal households without work, with only one parent, of ethnic minority origin. (Elie, Soubeyran et Blery, 1989).

Governments generally believed that estate rescue and stabilisation were economically and socially preferable to demolition, in spite of the physical, managerial and demand problems, as unstable estate communities needed anchoring, not displacing (BRBS, 1991; SBI, 1993). Governments funded an alternative approach of modifying external environments, introducing security measures, upgrading communal facilities and implementing basic repair. Nonetheless, in spite of the basic decision to save the estates, there were at least two cases in Britain and Ireland, and one in France, where the survival of the estates is still in question and some blocks have been removed in six cases (DoE-Ireland, 1997; Conrad, 1992).

 Localisation

Every successful rescue project was developed with a locally based team that interacted directly with the estate community. The well-known management technique of trouble-shooting, releasing responsive managers from bureaucratic constraints to take on problems directly, was implemented, providing a vital bridge between government, the city, the wider social system and local communities.(Elie, Souberyran et Blery, 1989; BRBS, 1991). This immediately led to more localised controls, more social and community facilities, more resident initiatives, more commitment to estates per se. There was a consistent pattern of changes in the five countries.

The shift in emphasis highlights the paradox of mass housing, conceived as a universalist solution, but found to be operable only at the most local level.

As a result of the new, localised mechanisms, empty units plummeted in the case study areas from a high of between 10% and 30%, to virtually full occupancy as Table 4 showed. Arrears fell as occupancy levels and stability rose; the impact of repairs increased and conditions became more normal as reinvestment took place and rising rent income enabled a more reasonable level of service.

Table 5 shows the broad shape of remedial measures introduced by the five countries.

Table 5 Showing 22 Principle Remedial Measures Applied on 20 European Estates through Rescue Programmes

Source: Authors = visits and government research

Note: Each estate programme adapted these measures to their particular conditions.

Impact We assessed the impact of changes based on the performance of local services, the views of local staff and tenants, and the independent evaluations carried out in each country (BRBS, 1991; Levy, 1989; SBI, 1993; Craig Gardener, 1993; Priority Estates Project, 1993). We estimated that over 90% of the improvement measures applied in the rescue programmes on the Continent had a positive impact. Around 70% had a similarly positive impact in Britain and Ireland. The gap in outcome resulted from weaker public management structures, a more bureaucratic style and ethos, a more limited caretaking function and less clear-cut financial discipline, as our earlier discussion of the Council model suggested. As part of a wide pattern of changes, the role of caretakers proved central.

The increase in control that resulted from the rescue programmes made the estates leasable again, albeit primarily to members of groups that were there already, people in need and people with a weak foothold on the housing or job ladder, people from minority backgrounds, people who were vulnerable in highly competitive societies. The wider economic changes of the late twentieth century continued to exert strong polarising pressures on those in the least secure positions.

In one important sense, however, estate populations had changed and stabilised. Tighter management control prevented abuse and enabled enforcement of basic standards. As a result, three quarters of estates in the survey regained viability in spite of continuing social problems and economic pressures.

Patchwork Model

We termed this multifaceted, localised method of estate rescue, a patchwork model for three reasons: firstly, the many small-scale inputs created an overall pattern of intervention that had a visible impact; secondly, the method was generally sustainable because of its ability to generate rent income, limit costs and reinstate social controls; thirdly, it normalised conditions by simultaneously applying localised and adaptive remedies while re-linking estates to the wider urban and political community.

Rescue programmes worked by enhancing stability and reducing pressures on vulnerable communities. The one depended on the other and the result was generally less volatile conditions, alongside the continuing danger that any reduction in effort or small amounts of additional pressure would trigger a new process of decline. Estates, therefore, required long-term, localised structures to anchor their conditions, accompanied by strong linkage to wider and more stable urban structures which government support provided (Power, 1997).

Figure 2 illustrates the model.

Figure 2 Localisation and linkage - a patchwork model

Conclusion

Europe, in the face of growing polarisation, appears less ready to sweep aside its urban legacy than it was after the war (Windsor, 1996). It also appears more flexible in redeploying its vital social underpinning than its earlier rigidities suggest (Dahrendorf 1982, 1985). In a crowded and increasingly migrant urban world, a more people-centred approach to cities made Europe’s large, difficult estates more stable and, therefore, more viable. It may be a lesson for urban futures that can be applied more widely.

List of References

BRBS (1991) Vitalisierung von Grosssiedlungen, June, Bonn-Bad Godesburg: BRBS

BRBS (1988) StadtebaulicherBericht, Neubausiedlungen der 60er und 70er Jahre, Probleme und Losungenswege, BRBS: Bonn

Conrad, C (1992) "Rehabiliter ou detruire les grandes ensembles?", Le Monde, 17^th June

DoE Ireland (1997) Press Release on the future of Ballymun

Elie, C. Soubeyran, P. & Blery, J.P. (1989) Roman d’une ZUP, Villeurbaine:

Prefecture Region Rhone-Alpes, Commission Regionale des Quartiers, Association regionale des organisms d’HLM de Rhone-Alpes

Harloe, M. (1996) The People’s Home, Social Rented Housing in Europe and America, Blackwell: Oxford

Katz, M. (1995) Improving Poor People: The Welfare State, the Underclass and Urban Schools as History. Princetown University Press, Princetown, New Jersey USA

Power, A. E. (1997) Estates on the Edge: The social consequences of mass housing in Europe, MacMillan: London

Power, A.E. (1993) Hovels to high Rise: State Housing in Europe since 1850, Routledge, London & New York

Quilliot, R. & Guerrand, R. H.(1989) Cents ans Habitat: Une Utopie Realiste, UNFOHLM: Paris

Salicath, N. (1987) Danish Social Housing Corporations, Vols I and II, Co-operative Building Industries Ltd, with the support of the Danish Boligminisieret, Copenhagen

SBI (1993) Bedre Bebyggelser - bedre liv? (Better Housing Estates – better life?) Results from an evaluation project by the Danish Building Research Institute, Town Planning Report 65 Horsholm: State Building Research Institute, Danish Ministry of Housing

Wilson, W. J. (1996) When Work Disappears, Alfred Knopf: New York