Estate Regeneration and its Discontents: Public Housing, Place and Inequality in London

Description

Using original interviews with estate residents in London, Watt provides a vivid account of estate regeneration and its impacts on marginalised communities in London, showing their experiences and perspectives, demonstrating the dramatic impacts that regeneration and gentrification can have on socio-spatial inequality. Public housing estates are disappearing from London's skyline in the name of regeneration, but what impact is state-led gentrification having on London's marginalised communities? Watt provides a vivid interdisciplinary account of estate regeneration in London in relation to key housing and urban policy debates, using original interviews from residents in some of the capital's most deprived areas to show the dramatic ways that regeneration is fuelling socio-spatial inequalities. Foregrounding resident experiences and perspectives throughout multiple stages of the regeneration process, he examines themes of belonging, place-attachment, community and home amidst the decline of London's council housing estates and increasing polarisation between the have-nots and have-lots.

Paul Watt is a Senior Lecturer in Urban Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London.

"A must read for any life-long student of urban regeneration, displacement, gentrification as well as for policy makers and investors to better understand and hopefully to maintain the use value of estate housing for the city of London." Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie (TESG) "This is an important book, whose biggest contribution to the field is in showing how regeneration has exacerbated London's housing crisis through the loss of social housing and displacement" Community Development Journal "This book is a powerful and in-depth account of residents' life experiences in fourteen London public housing estates. Paul Watt's recommendations are worth exploring and fighting for to stop the human suffering that regeneration is bringing upon some of the most vulnerable in London." European Planning Studies This brilliantly researched and passionately written book will be passed through generations as a cautionary tale of how public housing and its contribution to London's working-class lives was destroyed by venal politicians on behalf of the real-estate lobby. Stuart Hodkinson, University of Leeds "A real tour de force. Essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the links between housing, class inequality and working-class disadvantage." Tracy Shildrick, Newcastle University "Paul Watt is a leading analyst of housing policy and politics. He draws on this experience to make sense of a pervasive and troubling housing policy that is reshaping urban space and urban lives in London and beyond." David Madden, London School of Economics