Key words: balanced community, housing policy, exclusion, underclass, social ... adapted to changing conceptions of the role of the state in public provision, ...
GeoJournal 51: 351–360, 2001. © 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
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Social Mix and the ‘Balanced Community’ in British housing policy – a tale of two epochs Ian Cole and Barry Goodchild Centre for Regional, Economic and Social Research, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, S1 1WB, U.K. Received 30 November 2000; accepted 10 December 2000
Key words: balanced community, housing policy, exclusion, underclass, social capital
Abstract In Britain, concepts of ‘social mix’ and the ‘balanced community’ provide an example of how policy discourses have adapted to changing conceptions of the role of the state in public provision, forms of social division and inequality, and housing market transformations. The recent development of a policy agenda by the Labour government in Britain devised to promote more socially balanced neighbourhoods is not new, and its lineage may be traced back to the origins of housing and urban policy. However, the manner in which this objective has been framed and the intervention it has provoked have varied considerably over time. One is struck more by the episodic and discontinuous nature of the application of mix and balance in British policy than any sense of a coherent set of strategies pursued through changing times. This paper contrasts the place of social mix and balance in the discourses of the immediate post-war period in Britain with the renewed emphasis on such ideas in the policies of the New Labour government elected in 1997. In the first period, the claims of social mix were infused with the language of national reconstruction and the post-war settlement and the development of universal state provision. More recently, interest in social balance has arisen partly as a response to increased management difficulties and the process of ‘residualisation’ in social housing and partly in response to new concepts of the underclass, social exclusion and social capital. The promotion of social mix and balance in contemporary policy has been shaped by notions of the underclass, social exclusion and the development of social capital in poorer communities. Policy intervention is overtly premised on the assumption that more mixed communities will promote more positive social interaction for residents, despite the lack of evidence for this claim. In practice, much of the discourse has now taken on a stronger sense of discipline and control in order to manage social housing estates. The meaning of social balance remains confused, however, and the achievement of this objective through policy intervention is likely to remain fraught with problems.
Introduction This paper attempts to clarify and to evaluate the case for promoting social mix and social balance in Britain in the context of policies for social housing estates, that is to say properties managed by local authorities, housing associations and other types of non-profit making housing agencies. It focuses on two particular periods in which these terms have gained prominence in policy debates – in the creation of New Towns in the post- war period, and following the election of the New Labour government in 1997. ‘Social mix’ and ‘community balance’ are slippery concepts whose meaning may be analysed in two main ways. The first section shows how concepts of mix and balance constitute a series of policy ‘discourses’, with contrasting implications at different historical periods. The second section examines the practical meaning and scope of policies, and how they relate to the causes of social segregation and social imbalance, by contrasting the usage of the terms in the immediate post-war period with the recent emphasis placed by the New Labour government. In conclusion, the paper reflects on the connections between the concept of ‘balance’
and the practice of ‘exclusion’ in housing allocation, and explores how the two have developed in tandem. Social balance as discourse Proposals for social mix and balance are a recurrent theme in the history of housing, planning and urban policy in Britain and are moulded by the political assumptions and social and economic characteristics of their era. Haworth and Manzi (1999, pp. 161–163) have suggested that in the 1990s proposals for social balance may be analysed as a “discourse” that is as a set of commonly accepted policy principles that make moral assumptions about how people, particularly the poor, should behave and how the state should respond. The terms ‘social mix’ and ‘social balance’ are conceptually distinct, though often elided in policy debates. They both cover numerous overlapping characteristics of a population – age, tenure, class, income, ethnicity and so on. ‘Social mix’ suggests that the neighbourhood in question varies (to an indeterminate extent) on some or all of these factors. All neighbourhoods are, of course, ‘mixed’ to a degree – but some are more ‘mixed’ than others. ‘Balance’, on
352 the other hand, connotes an external reference point with which comparisons can be made. A neighbourhood may be more or less ‘balanced’ when certain characteristics are compared with those of a wider district, city, region or nation, or of equivalent neighbourhoods selected according to a set of other variables (property type, inner city location etc.). But ‘balance’ has another meaning – that of ‘harmony’. A ‘balanced’ community, therefore, implicitly suggests a degree of positive social interaction and a degree of social cohesion (Page, 1994, p. 74). It goes beyond a mere description of local, compared to ‘reference’, population attributes. The ready but unexamined assumption in the policy literature is that a more ‘mixed’ community lays the foundations for producing a more ‘balanced’ one in the second, normative sense of the term - even though it could be equally plausible to argue that more mixed neighbourhoods will in fact engender more conflicts and tensions. But the very fact that the term ‘balance’ has become linked to positive outcomes, and is also extremely difficult to define, helps to explain its appeal to policy makers and its regular appearances in recent policy documents - and thereby its relevance to a form of discourse analysis. Its very ‘openness’ of meaning forms part of its attraction for policy, as Fairclough has suggested: “Social phenomena are linguistic, in the sense that language activity. . . is not merely a reflection or expression of social processes and practices, it is a part of those processes and practices. For example, disputes about the meaning of political expressions are a constant and familiar aspect of politics. . . such disputes are sometimes seen as merely preliminaries to or outgrowths from the real practices and processes of politics. . . they are not: they are politics.” (Fairclough, 1989, p. 23) The notion of discourse focuses on the power and meaning of words. Discourse analysis has been subject to a range of criticisms of various kinds, not least from the perspective of political economy and materialist analysis. This critique often revolves around the claim that an emphasis on discourse and language signifies a retreat from engagement with the realities of the urban world in terms of poverty and inequality (Collins, 2000). Discourse analysis has been criticised as an approach that can drift into a decontextualised, relativistic and introspective cul de sac. While acknowledging some of these potential weaknesses in its more esoteric variants, Hastings (1999, p. 7) among others has claimed that discourse analysis can indeed be anchored into social and historical foundations while concentrating on substantive issues of citizenship, planning, urban governance and the policy process. The approach therefore needs to be squarely situated “within the umbrella of social, economic and political life” (Imrie et al., 1996, p. 1258). This focuses attention on the need for discourses to be ‘embedded’ (Granovetter, 1985) in their wider social context, acknowledging power relationships and institutional forms and normative frameworks (Howarth and Manzil, 1999).
The notion of discourse is more flexible than that of ‘ideology’, as it avoids any implication of false consciousness or of any determinate link with economic interests – precisely the site of dispute with materialists. A discourse may sometimes merge with ideology. According to Foucault, (1984, p. 60), however, discourse is neither true nor false. A discourse has to be debated and tested against other interpretations of social life. It must, moreover, be analysed, at least at first, through genealogy, a study of its development, comparing different meanings at different times. Discourse expresses the sense that a body of ideas is embedded in a historical context, and therefore a comparison of the use of the terms in different time periods of policy formulation and implementation can generate some useful insights. This is the approach taken to this interpretive account of the ideas of social mix and community balance at two phases in British urban and housing policy. The genealogy of social mix and the balanced community The existence of a distinctive policy discourse about social mix and balance commands attention but it is not, however, new. The promotion of more mixed neighbourhoods in British social housing estates through specific urban and housing policies and initiatives in the post-war period does not constitute a seamless narrative. Instead, it is marked by discontinuities and uncertainties. The intention here is to focus on and contrast two periods when the notions of mix and balance had a particular prominence in policy discourse – in the immediate post-war era, and in the New Labour ‘project’ from 1997 onwards. A comparison of these two periods demonstrates how the meaning and potential application of the terms have been refashioned under different historical and social circumstances, while nonetheless eluding precise analysis and evaluation in both representations. The idea of social mix was mentioned in British planning documents as long ago as the Ilford Town plan of 1846 (noted in Sarkissian, 1976, p. 234) and then emerged as a prominent aspect of the garden city movement before the First World War. Some of the first residents in the Bournville model village near Birmingham, for example, were chosen with a view to “gathering together as mixed a community as possible applied to the character and interests as well as to income and social class” (Bournville Village Trust, 1956, in Sarkissian, 1976, p. 235). Social mix and balance had therefore formed part of a wider idealist vision in planning, albeit confined in application to specific initiatives and new developments. However, the ideas were more systematically adopted and integrated into the housing and New Town programmes of the 1945– 51 Labour governments. Aneurin Bevan (Minister of Health and Local Government, with responsibility for the housing programme) was a particular advocate, deleting as a symbolic measure the term ‘working class’ from legislation concerning the provision of local authority housing. Bevan was scathing about earlier patterns of urban development, which led, in his terms, to “castrated communities.” Instead,
353 he wished to build on council estates “the living tapestry of a mixed community” similar to the long established English and Welsh village (Foot, 1975, pp. 75–76). Social balance, he felt, could be provided through a single, inclusive tenure. He thus sought to develop a universal basis for public housing provision, to parallel initiatives in state education, health and social insurance. The social balance policies of the 1940s and 1950s were influenced by a series of shared ideas and assumptions, stemming from several different reference points. The post-war Labour government’s social programme could not escape confronting the legacy of the class and social divisions exacerbated by inter-war depression and the social dislocation and turbulence occasioned by the war itself. The programme was imbued with the ethos of building the ‘new Jerusalem’ (or at least some New Towns) in post-war Britain, and the construction of more universal welfare provision as part of the social settlement to accompany the Keynesian economic settlement to end class conflict. The flowering of such ideals proved short-lived. Public housing never gained the same foothold in the British welfare state as public health and education services, for a range of reasons (Cole and Furbey, 1994). The post-war settlement gradually came apart and the private sector flourished in new housing developments. The capacity of the state to achieve social goals through ‘delivering’ planning and housing policies came under increasing challenge (Goodchild, 1990). The implementation of social balance policies in the 1940s and 1950s had stimulated a series of detailed and generally sceptical evaluation studies. These suggested that social balance, defined as the existence of a cross-section of social and economic groups in the same estate, did not promote social interaction and may even promote disputes between neighbours (Kuper, 1953). The studies also suggested that, if given the choice, most people would prefer to have neighbours of a similar background to themselves (Orlans, 1952, pp. 81–95); and that more intensive neighbouring is likely in streets and estates characterised by a degree of social homogeneity, or similarity in their social background, rather than diversity (Carey and Mapes, 1972). If, therefore, the aim of neighbourhood development were to create a sense of community, social homogeneity would provide a better way forward than mix and diversity. Furthermore, the supposed benefits of ‘balanced’ or ‘mixed income’ communities had never been extended to the rich – who continued to live in their own (as yet ungated) enclaves. The promotion of social balance largely disappeared as a significant national policy initiative in the 1950s. The sceptical results of the various social research projects may have contributed to this. More significantly, however, the prospects for achieving social balance foundered on the persistence of quality variations within the local authority housing stock, the growth of owner-occupation, and the persistence of wider economic and social inequalities. Bevan had hoped that local authority housing would eventually be the predominant tenure for all social classes. In the 1950s, private developers, building for owner-occupation, started to
replace local authorities as the main providers of new housing, and council housing was increasingly directed to those ‘in housing need’. Even in New Towns, where there was more scope for coordinated development between different agencies, policies to promote social balance broke down at the neighbourhood level (Heraud, 1968). The new inhabitants in the New Towns did not cover the full social spectrum, consisting predominantly of skilled working class and middle class households. They were also far from ‘mixed’ in demographic terms – as in most new housing developments, there was an initial over-preponderance of families with young children. The New Town philosophy had centred on the construction of neighbourhoods of about 5,000 sufficient to sustain a primary school and promote social interaction (Llewelyn-Davies, 1966, p. 158) and then grouped into districts of around 15,000–20,000 people, organised on secondary school catchment areas, as well as the provision of a health centre and bigger shops (Derbyshire, 1967, p. 431). However, the New Towns stopped short of ‘indiscriminate’ mixing of households with different income levels, and a clustering of families with similar characteristics was encouraged (Heraud, 1968, p. 37). It was hoped that the physical proximity of community facilities, rather than cheek-by-jowl neighbourliness, would be sufficient to encourage ‘mixed’ social interaction. Furthermore, as Forrest (2000) has claimed, diverse sources of employment in the New Towns were also seen as facilitating the growth of more balanced neighbourhoods. This emphasis differs from the more recent policy manifestations of ‘social balance’ where it is lack of participation in the labour market which has prompted the anxiety about segregated communities, leading, as shown later, to a stronger focus on the arena of ‘consumption’ rather than ‘production’. The more ambitious sociological aspirations of the New Towns programme were not achieved. As early as 1945, Form’s study of Maryland had recognised a ‘strain for stratification’ in a planned residential community, and the emergence of a complex hierarchy of status differentials (Form, 1945, pp. 610–612). A similar process was discerned in the British New Towns, as different social class enclaves emerged within neighbourhoods, partly as a result of the clustering of rented and owned properties. The social mix of these planned communities was in practice more a product of the serial homogeneity of different groups in neighbourhoods across a district than a reflection of any thoroughgoing localised social diversity. The return to the social mix and ‘balance’ as policy aspirations Proposals for social balance slipped down the urban policy agenda from the 1960s onwards, though they returned sporadically over measures to improve inner cities, promote ethnic diversity and provide affordable housing (Goodchild and Cole, 2000). But why, given the above instances of policy ‘failure’ associated with measures to promote mixed and balanced communities, did these ideas return to the centre
354 stage in the New Labour government’s housing and urban policies from 1997? The answer lies partly in the beguiling attractions of the terms to New Labour’s government’s overall ‘project’ to promote a ‘third way’ (Giddens, 1998) (itself an expression of achieving an ideological balance between contending polarities). But the government’s espousal of social balance was not simply a reworking of the earlier versions. The application of the idea in policy measures had a different emphasis and the use of the terms had a different nuance. The earlier language of the ‘melting pot’, of submerging social difference, of blunting class conflict, had given way to a less determinate concept, underpinned by an implicit language of exclusion and control. Under the discourse of inclusivity, the ‘balanced’ community became paradoxically a means of leaving some unwanted participants out. The current focus of attention on social balance lies in projects designed to promote neighbourhood renewal and social inclusion rather than, as before, on the principles of comprehensive planning and reconstruction. The advocacy of social balance as an objective is, moreover, generally more tentative and uncertain. The renewed interest in the social mix of ‘excluded’ neighbourhoods stemmed from a combination of factors. The first was the way in which the social housing estate itself had become ‘problematised’ as an arena for intervention. The ‘residualisation’ of the British council housing sector since the 1960s has been well documented (Murie and Forrest, 1990; Malpass and Murie, 1999). It was indicative of the degree to which housing was the first area of postwar public provision to be detached from any semblance of ‘universality’ – a process whereby public sector housing rapidly acquired secondary status to owner- occupation in the 1950s, reinforced by bi-partisan support for the ‘home owner’ (Merrett, 1979). One outcome of the process of residualisation was the narrowing of the income and social profile of households in the social housing sector, and the growing proportion not active in the labour market. A lack of investment in maintenance, poor design and unresponsive housing management reinforced the unpopularity of the sector. The outcome is increasing correspondence between economic vulnerability and place, with an ever wider geographical expression of the growing gulf between the ‘contented’ majority (Galbraith, 1993) and the marginalised minority (Lee and Murie, 1999). The ‘council estate’ soon became shorthand for ‘declining neighbourhood’ rather than the crucible for different social class and income groups envisaged by Bevan. The ‘problem’ of council housing was initially formulated as a failure of management by local authorities, (Power, 1987), but the fact that properties were becoming ‘difficult to let’ had also extended by the early 1990s to housing associations as well (Pawson et al., 1997). In an influential study of new housing association estates, Page (1993) argued that “planning to reduce social imbalance” should become a cardinal feature of future housing association development strategies. The neighbourhood renewal programmes of the 1980s mostly concentrated on specific estates, but by the 1990s
they were increasingly influenced by new approaches to social policy, and especially the concepts of the ‘underclass’, social exclusion and ‘social capital’. This in turn reflected the shift towards more co-ordinated and outwardlooking strategies in urban policy (Hall, 1997). Notions of the underclass and of social exclusion express different attitudes towards poverty. The underclass concept emphasises the role and obligations of individuals and the way in which those obligations are negated by anti-social or economically dependent subcultures. In contrast, the concept of social exclusion emphasises the structural processes that prevent people from participating in ‘mainstream’ social life or that prevent access to employment, health and educational resources. Notions of the underclass and of social exclusion also place a varying emphasis on the significance of social segregation. The underclass concept generally assumes that segregation creates or exacerbates deviant or workshy subcultures. In Britain, the ‘underclass’ proved to be more a potent symbol of social division than a readily identifiable social group (Mann, 1994). However, for some commentators, council estates in Britain already had taken on features of underclass neighbourhoods found in the United States (Murray, 1994, p. 4). Concepts of social exclusion are less consistent in their implications for social balance. They are more concerned with underlying social and economic processes than specific attributes and forms of behaviour. If the underclass notion suggests that a route out of marginalisation is the acquisition of ‘mainstream’ cultural and moral codes, in social exclusion the ‘way back’ is through (re)entering the workplace. Nevertheless, for all their differences, concepts of the underclass and of social exclusion share a dislike of closed communities. They both favour open interaction, either between people living on an estate and people living elsewhere or between people of different socio-economic backgrounds living in the same estate or a combination of the two. In particular, the new policy discourse is set against measures to promote strong grassroots communities amongst the poor for fear that this will cause further isolation. Perri 6 (1997), for example, linked social segregation to a lack of job opportunities and suggested that balanced communities were more likely to create informal social contacts, and the ‘get- work networks’ that help ensure unemployed people find work. The ‘old’ policy discourse in social housing had been different. The old discourse favoured measures to promote stable communities, at the ‘risk’ of sustaining homogeneity. Young and Lemos (1997), for example, suggested that social housing agencies should attempt to promote a sense of community and solidarity amongst their residents, to make them to help each other and co-operate in controlling anti-social behaviour. For the new policy discourse, though, this would simply ‘lock them in’ to their fate. It is in this context that ideas around the importance of developing the ‘social capital’ of local communities have taken root. Originally described by Jacobs (1961) and Coleman (1988) and then developed by Putnam (1993, 1995), social capital consists of ‘networks and norms that enable
355 participants to act together effectively to pursue shared objectives’ (Gitell and Vidal, 1998, p. 15). Putnam distinguishes between ‘bonding’ capital, among people who already know each other (akin to the community support approach outlined above) and ‘bridging’ capital (emphasised in the networks approach) between people or groups who did not previously know each other. Temkin and Rohe (1998) take the analysis further by relating ‘bonding capital’ to what they refer to as the ‘sociocultural milieu’ and bridging capital to institutional infrastructure (defined by the presence of active community groups, and also the ‘degree of communication’ between the neighbourhood and the larger city). The social capital approach has been subject to considerable criticism about how far it represents an empirically accurate reading of voluntary activity in American communities, let alone its transferability to other countries with quite different local political and social traditions. The view that poorer neighbourhoods lack social capital is also open to more fundamental challenge, as mutual support and reciprocity may be more, rather than less, evident, in the form of coping strategies and collective responses to adversity (Forrest, 2000). For the purposes of this paper, the key assumption of the ‘social capital’ thesis for policy discourse lies in its emphasis on the ‘relational’ or ‘transactional’ qualities of neighbourhoods and the value of external links. It suggests that a socially mixed neighbourhood needs to generate ‘positive social interaction’ in order to raise the social capital of its residents, thereby diminishing the social exclusion encountered by the poorer members of the community. In policy terms, the promotion of social balance from a social capital perspective emphasises the value of mixed communities in more effectively ‘bridging’ relationships, both within a neighbourhood and in its links to the wider world. The basic assumption is that a more diverse mix will both deepen and widen social interaction in a positive way. However, as shown below, this remains much more an assertion than an empirically demonstrable phenomenon. Social mix and balance and New Labour policies A series of official policy statements of the New Labour government has acknowledged social balance as a policy aim. The initial report on neighbourhood renewal by the interdepartmental unit set up within days of Tony Blair’s election, the Social Exclusion Unit (1998), argued in favour of neighbourhoods that contain a mixture of “people with jobs as well as those without”. The Urban Task Force, established to clarify policies for urban regeneration, was strongly in support of mixing activities, uses and tenures (Urban Task Force, 1999, p. 71), and the Government’s Urban White Paper (DETR, 2000c) took this on as a principle for shaping the future ‘renaissance’ of Britain’s cities. Social balance received a more qualified message of support in the advice that the Department of Environment, Transport and Regions gives to local authorities about how to determine planning applications. The first paragraph of
Circular 06/98 Planning and Affordable Housing stated that planning authorities “should encourage the development of mixed and balanced communities in order to avoid areas of social exclusion”. At the same time, “the primary objective will be to ensure that there is enough land to meet housing needs” (DETR, 1998). In other words, meeting housing needs is the prime aim, rather than social balance as such. The Housing Green Paper for England was published for consultation in mid-2000, setting out the government’s future legislative intentions in housing policy. It proposed planning for mixed housing types and uses in both existing and new developments and altering lettings policies to achieve greater social mix. (DETR, 2000a, especially paras 8.9, 8.23, 8.24) In a similar vein, Planning Policy Guidance Note 3 had argued that the planning system should “help create mixed and inclusive communities, which offer a choice of housing and lifestyle” (DETR, 2000b, p. 7). The most recent Social Exclusion Unit report on neighbourhood renewal also claimed that ‘communities function best when they contain a broad social mix’ (Social Exclusion Unit, 2000, p. 53). Where official documents endorse social balance, the omissions are as significant as what is stated. Unlike the earlier prescriptions of Labour governments, there is no reference to mixing different social classes at the neighbourhood level. Class is a collective concept that fits uneasily in any guise under the New Labour canopy, and has effectively been dissolved as a feature of social or economic division. The current policy agenda emphasises individual social mobility and is designed to combat those forces that prevent such mobility. Likewise, there is little mention of policies to change the social characteristics of social housing as a tenure. Although the Housing Green Paper talks about enhancing ‘choice’ and ‘quality’ in the tenure, its residual status is largely taken as given. Indeed, much of the Green Paper is given over to encouraging the transfer of stock from the local authority sector to RSLs, new ‘housing companies’ or tenant-controlled bodies. A further stark difference from the immediate post-war discourse is evident in the institutional arrangements devised to ‘deliver’ more balanced communities. Bevan relied on the massive expansion of local government machinery to make it a sector capable of widening access to the tenure of council housing. This was coupled with the creation of the New Towns Commission and local Development Corporations, with a considerable array of powers to push forward plans. Social Development Officers were also appointed to ease the process of settling in and to promote social objectives. Such nakedly dirigiste tendencies are absent from the 1990s formulation of how social balance might be achieved. The imprint of the state is less visible, but not necessarily less pervasive. As shown below, the influence of local agencies on the social composition of poorer neighbourhoods had become less direct, but possibly more insidious. Finally, ‘balanced’ communities are assumed in the current discourse to be ‘sustainable’ (and this latter term merits its own form of discourse analysis: Long, 2000). The term sustainable here implies ‘not requiring constant interven-
356 tion’ – in other words, the community will develop its own codes of conduct and look after itself, rather than demand ongoing attention from the landlords responsible for managing the properties on the neighbourhood. A sustainable community needs less from public intervention. The potential realisation of government strategies designed to promote social balance directs attention to the local level, for it is here that key agencies can affect the social characteristics of particular neighbourhoods. How might attempts to broaden the social mix of poorer areas be put into place? In practice, despite the policy emphasis on social capital (and its cousin, ‘community capacity’) and social exclusion, many of the recommendations on neighbourhood renewal remain based on conventional management solutions to intervention on problem estates - through the employment of neighbourhood managers, wardens or “super caretakers” in troublesome neighbourhoods (Cabinet Office, 2000; DETR, 2000e). This helps to reveal the extent to which, beneath the advocacy of social diversity, mechanisms are being developed to ensure more effective social control in excluded communities.
Achieving social balance in practice? In the context of local practice, a distinction can be made between different indicators of social imbalance – for example, in terms of age, ethnic background, housing tenure or socio-economic status – although these are rarely considered separately in the policy documentation. Each indicator is also influenced by sifting processes within the social housing stock and by local allocations policies seeking to control the number and type of different households living in particular places. This account will focus on attempts to mix tenures, and to control access to social housing through the allocations system. The other aspects of social balance (especially the links between age profiles and estate life cycles) have been considered more fully elsewhere (Goodchild and Cole, 2000; Page, 1993; Burrows, 1997). One should, however, note en passant that there is little explicit reference in recent policy documents to the promotion of ethnic or racial balance as a component of strategies to produce more balanced communities. There are legal obstacles here. Policies that amount to more favourable treatment of ethnic minorities risk contravening the Race Relations Acts, 1968 and 1976, if they are not pursued on a voluntary basis (MacEwen, 1991, p. 180, pp. 230–232, p. 410). In Britain, the promotion of residential mobility amongst ethnic minority households would only proceed after resolution of broader issues relating to positive discrimination.
Socio-economic balance: mixing housing tenure The need to provide both rented and owner-occupied housing had been recognised in the New Towns programme as a means of promoting more mixed communities, but the need to combat ‘tenure segregation’ has been a more central
feature of recent discourse around social balance. This has often been conceived in terms of developing owner-occupied housing within an estate or on an adjacent site. Such development is not to be confused with the sale of individual dwellings to their occupants (notably through the promotion of the tenants’ right to buy established under successive Housing Acts). The extent to which tenants exercise their right to buy might be considered as an indication of the success of estate regeneration in increasing the confidence of residents. The exercise of the right to buy does not, however, diversify the social composition of an area, except possibly in the long term in places where higher income households purchase the dwellings at the time of subsequent sales. (And in low demand areas, subsequent sales may well be made to private landlords, who then house those very households excluded from the social sector as part of allocations ‘screening’.) Instead, changing the social composition requires the sale of empty property and land in a way that attracts purchasers who would not have otherwise moved into such an area. The promotion of owner-occupation in or near social housing estates has some parallels with gentrification. Both gentrification and estate upgrading through owneroccupation involve a process whereby higher income households move into a working class or lower income neighbourhood (Bridge, 1990). However, gentrification leads in the long term to the displacement of the original population, whereas social balance policies assume that the neighbourhood remains mixed. Social balance policies can also apply to low demand areas, where house prices are generally affordable for those in full-time employment and where there is no shortage of social housing. The promotion of owner-occupation as a component of tenure mix has generally proceeded through the sale of development sites, rather than through the sale of empty blocks or individual dwellings. The experience embraces much local variation, depending on the scale of demand in the local market, the confidence of private investors and the degree of subsidy. (Capita Management Consultancy, 1996; Fearnley et al., 1998; Robinson, 1998). There are successful examples in Scotland where grant aid has been made available to help private developers participate in neighbourhood regeneration to introduce owner-occupation into areas previously dominated by poor quality council housing (Kintrea et al., 1996). There are two kinds of mixed tenure scheme. The first is the ‘flagship’ project, involving extensive neighbourhood remodelling, sustained capital investment, tenure transformation and community development. The Hulme estate in Manchester is perhaps the best documented of such schemes in England, though similar plans are being developed in other cities to transform the social as well as physical character of previously unpopular neighbourhoods (Cole and Shayer, 1998a). Social diversity has been a central aim of such projects, but they have all required huge amounts of additional capital investment to produce physical transformations alongside social changes in the neighbourhood. They are not capable of widespread replication, though they
357 may help to produce a positive ‘demonstration effect’ to other agencies. The second set of mixed tenure initiatives has emerged from less ambitious, ‘mainstream’ schemes undertaken by local authorities and housing associations. Some light on this experience in the past ten years has been shed by a recent thesis tracing the development of multi-tenure estates in the British housing system (Dixon, 2000). Dixon concludes that the ‘stereotyping’ of social housing was not overcome by the geographical proximity of different tenures. Most of those parties involved in the schemes had pragmatic motives – as a way of securing funds, or disposing of land, or gaining planning permission for a scheme, especially in rural areas. Dixon found “there were nominal references to social balance objectives in each of the case study areas, but these were often just a demonstration that they were aware of current trends in policy making” (p. 233). She concludes that planners and policy makers are “perhaps dealing in the wrong currency when attempting to manipulate people’s behaviour through the use of housing tenure and the confines of a small geographical area (i.e. a neighbourhood)” (p. 238). In short, the reshaping of tenure per se is likely to have limited impact; its insertion into a more holistic programme of intervention may reap larger dividends – but the proximity of owners and renters does not lead to ‘bridging’ between the two groups. Dixon’s conclusions are supported by other small-scale studies examining the pattern of social interaction in mixed tenure neighbourhoods. An exploratory study by Atkinson and Kintrea (1998) suggested that patterns of social life varied by tenure and that there was little interaction between owner-occupiers and social housing tenants. Furthermore, the neighbourhood was much more important as a focus for interaction for social housing tenants than home owners. A similar pattern was discerned in a survey of 52 residents in a newly completed mixed tenure redevelopment in Sheffield (Cole and Shayer, 1998b). Jupp undertook a survey of over 1,000 residents living in ten mixed tenure estates in England, which concluded that the street was a more meaningful unit for patterns of social interaction than the estate as a whole. Since private and social housing was generally located on different streets in the case studies, there was little mixing between the two groups. Fostering greater estate-wide contact was likely to be an uphill struggle. Most people, in short, “do not think that they share many common interests with their neighbours” (Jupp, 1999, p. 10–11). Forrest and Kearns (1999) considered the issue of social mix in the context of social cohesion and urban regeneration in four contrasting locations. The study underlined the value of caring, friendly neighbours, but also noted that notions of social balance or social mix were not universally accepted by residents of deprived areas. A conflict existed between “those who seek diversity and difference as essential ingredients of a vibrant community and a view of cohesion and community which emphasises similarities of life stage, attitudes and circumstances” (p. 13). Of course, patterns of local social interaction in mixed estates will vary for a host of reasons – such as the different
stages in a person’s life cycle and according to household income (Suttles, 1972, pp. 37–42). Children, mothers with young children and old people are likely to be more dependent on a locality than people of working age with access to a car. Likewise, people on low incomes are less likely to possess the financial resources to sustain social networks at a distance. Even so, the general picture in the British studies suggests, in the words of Atkinson et al. (1998, p. 54), that increased mix has not led to the type of “transformation of social relations which is being sought in the debate on social exclusion”. Taken together, these studies tell a largely consistent story - there is little social interaction between people of different tenure background. There is partial support for the ‘social capital’ thesis. The introduction of owner-occupation had not led to ‘bridging’ within the community, but it may have helped external links with the wider neighbourhood. It may influence the response of outside agencies and members of other communities. Both the Glasgow and Sheffield studies, for example, mentioned that residents welcomed an influx of higher income households on the grounds that it had improved the external reputation and appearance of the area. That in itself might be sufficient reason for promoting mixed tenure schemes, but it does not betoken the creation of a ‘balanced’ community. The outcome of the above studies suggests that the quality of life is determined by the interaction between social mix and a variety of other factors. The relevance and desirability of social balance for residents themselves depend on the context. What is presented as unproblematic in the general policy discourse receives more qualified appraisal from those living in those areas deemed ‘ripe’ for ‘treatment’. Nevertheless, a continuing thread in the discourse around community balance is, therefore, the assertion that neighbourhood proximity will of itself reshape patterns of social interaction, cutting across divides of social class (in the 1940s formulation) or housing tenure (in the 1990s). This has survived the extremely shaky empirical evidence as well as the lessening salience of the ‘neighbourhood’ as a forum for interaction in a world of high car use, email, networking, high residential mobility and more fluid and disparate urban formations. The claim that social mix will influence patterns of social behaviour endures, but it also provides a canvas under which other means of affecting the composition of social housing estates can be implemented – especially through manipulating the criteria for allocating properties to applicant households. This leads to practice developed from the continuing need for the effective ‘management’ or ‘containment’ of poorer neighbourhoods, rather than their wholesale redevelopment or reconstitution.
Allocations and access: balance through exclusion The agenda of social balance has therefore developed a parallel discourse centred on the eviction or exclusion of certain members of the community. The ‘balanced’ neighbourhood is a site for strategies of ‘social hygiene’ for existing mem-
358 bers of the community as much as the ‘insertion’ of new households. The debate about social balance has segued into pressures from social housing providers to move away from bureaucratically defined notions of ‘need’ as a key point in their lettings, and to adopt more flexible allocations. The two main drivers for this approach have been the desire to avoid concentrations of the most ‘needy’ households in unpopular neighbourhoods with high turnover (and therefore vacancies), and the growth of ‘low demand’ for social renting, especially in parts of Scotland, and the North and Midlands in England. This has forced social landlords to seek out new custom rather than merely operate standard rationing procedures for those in the queue (Cole, Kane and Robinson, 1999, DETR, 2000d) The move away from needs-based factors to other indicators, and the possible introduction of targets or quotas for specific population characteristics, has been termed ‘community’ or ‘flexible’ lettings (Chartered Institute of Housing in Wales, 2000; Cope, 2000). The main difference from usual practice is that local housing officers or tenant representatives have more discretion over who is housed on their estates. The avoidance of concentrations of deprived households through controlling access is a key aim of such procedures. Housing agencies generally find it easier to define and recognise the problems associated with imbalance rather than the advantages of balance as a social ideal (Cole, Dixon and Reid, 1998b, p. 13). However, the desire to prevent ‘imbalance’ overlaps with other considerations mostly concerned with the creation of stable communities - giving a priority to people who actively want to live on an estate, having a preference for local people rather than outsiders, and, especially, the exclusion of potentially troublesome neighbours (Griffiths et al., 1995, p. 25). The policy discourse on ‘balance’ therefore unfolds through a combination of inclusions (such as connection to a local community) and exclusions (those with a history of anti-social behaviour or debt) that allows the landlord to control the social composition of its housing stock. Social balance and social control (or more effective self-regulation by communities themselves) are inextricably linked through such practices. Community lettings have become more common and more routinely applied, especially amongst housing associations (Pawson and Kearns, 1998). The use of legal measures to exclude “anti-social” tenants have also become more common in England in the past five years, amongst both local authorities and housing associations (Butler, 1998; Nixon et al., 1999). This trend raises many questions for housing practice. What rights should excluded applicants or excluded tenants have if they wish to challenge a decision? Where will they go? What will be the effect on other areas? What will be the effect on other housing agencies, including private landlords? Recent policy documentation is rather light on the answers to such questions. In a recent review, Cope urged social landlords to “strike the balance between sustaining local communities by being tough on anti-social behaviour, including via exclusions
where appropriate, and housing and supporting individuals who may be at risk of creating problems.” (p. 27) It is still early to conclude how any such ‘balance’ will be struck in practice, but the growing adoption of management practices such as vetting the financial and criminal histories of applicants, ‘assessing households’ ‘potential contribution to community’, and introducing ‘probationary’ periods in tenancies suggests that ‘toughness’ may prevail over ‘support’. If so, it will bear witness to Damer’s claim that in ‘sink estates’ in Britain “the ideology of the segregation, surveillance and patrolling of the poor is alive and well. . . a century after its original articulation” (Damer, 2000, p. 2023) Some social housing agencies are now beginning to take social modelling through allocations a step further, through adopting techniques of ‘estate profiling’. This requires the landlord to devise a ‘profile’ of the ideal social and economic structure of their neighbourhoods, according to a set of indicators that can be regularly updated and monitored. This represents a move from the ‘negative screening’ of exclusion to more direct attempts at social engineering. The estate profiling approach was originally devised in the context of French social housing (Cole, Dixon and Reid, 1998a) but an ongoing analysis for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation of flexible lettings by Cole and Iqbal (2000) has suggested that there is no shortage of experimentation in ‘bending’ the criteria for access to social housing. Typically, there is a lack of any monitoring framework to enable judgements to be made about the extent to which the social composition of an area is moving towards its ‘ideal’. Quite apart from devising a rationale for selecting and weighting the criteria, the practical difficulties in acquiring an adequate up-to-date information base are formidable, especially for areas managed by a number of different landlords. Nevertheless, the Housing Green Paper has lent support to the idea of moving away from allocations by ‘need’, while remaining cautious about what kind of allocations system should take its place (DETR, 2000a). Conclusion It has been suggested that in the current climate ‘balanced’ communities on social housing estates are viewed as being more ‘sustainable’. For many landlords, the most ‘sustainable’ communities are those requiring the least attention as they juggle resource pressures, external scrutiny and performance scores as well as reshaping the social composition of the neighbourhoods in which they operate. The exclusion of potentially troublesome households, with ‘tutelage of the poor’ (Donzelot, 1979) for those who remain - under the gaze of newly deployed Neighbourhood Wardens - is now the path offered for creating more ‘balance’ in socially excluded communities in Britain. Though proposals for social balance have a long history, current measures have only a limited sense of continuity with those of the past. Social balance policies are being pursued within a different, less directive and less self-confident system of planning. Concepts of social balance still offer a discourse of the desirable, but they have become more
359 fragmented and contradictory. The relation between social balance and the term ‘exclusion’ provides a striking example. At a national level, measures to counter social exclusion imply policies to promote social balance and involve disadvantaged people in all aspects of economic and social life. In practice, at the level of estate management, social housing agencies seek to control the population characteristics of their estates by cleansing them of any potentially disruptive influences. In addition, a discontinuity exists between the national policy discourse and the lives of residents. There is some evidence that more socially mixed neighbourhoods are likely to be less stigmatised by outsiders, but it is difficult to identify clear practical benefits for households living in the type of mixed tenure estates that have been developed in Britain. Such schemes have generally found that these retain segregation at the street level, with owner-occupiers living in one part of an estate and social housing tenants living elsewhere. The social balance discourse continues to interact with other discourses and other policies. Fifty years ago, the New Town programme helped to meet the acute post-war housing shortage, whatever its possible failings in achieving more ‘balanced’ communities along the way. Similarly some policies in favour of mixed tenure now can be justified for other reasons – such as providing more homes for people in need, as in the provision of ‘affordable’ rented homes in predominantly owner-occupied areas. This review of the two episodes in which policy statements have promoted social mix and balance in poorer neighbourhoods through direct intervention raises crucial questions about the process by which a particular discourse becomes translated into tangible programmes and practices. Assumptions that social inequalities, social networks and the development of ‘social capital’ will be changed by the closer proximity of richer and poorer, older and younger, or owning and renting households in such areas receive limited support. Yet that is unlikely to prevent further incantations of the desirability of such aspirations in policies for neighbourhood renewal. Ironically, the households most directly affected by the recent attempts to secure ‘community balance’ are those who do not get the opportunity to ‘network’, ‘build social capital’ or ‘develop capacity’ at all – they are those evicted from, or excluded from living in, such neighbourhoods, by virtue of their allegedly ‘anti-social’ characteristics.
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