Introduction

It seems to be received opinion that large housing estates, especially in Western Europe, attract many immigrants and households in a weak social position. Politicians and researchers alike express the view that these estates are not only homogeneous in terms of housing characteristics, but also socially, in the sense that concentrations of poor people are found there. Many think that the homogeneous stock is capable of ‘producing’ these concentrations and, moreover, that social homogeneity tends to have the effect of diminishing further the social opportunities of those who live there. This situation would create a seedbed for a ‘place making’ type of policy, which puts forward the concept of a more mixed environment as the ideal kind of place that policy makers should strive to develop.

Place making involves the participation of new types of stakeholders (local residents, for example) and not just the traditional ones (public authorities, for example). The new role of the residents in estate regeneration requires them to have enhanced capacities, which are expected to be associated with an enhanced socioeconomic status. A population with fewer poor people would be capable of enhancing the role of residents in estate regeneration, but would simultaneously lead to a wider diversity of ‘ideal images’ of the estate (see Chapter Three). In this chapter, we concentrate on some crucial assumptions underlying these ideas.

The assumptions regarding the relationship between housing mix, social mix, and social perspectives have clearly been insufficiently tested. Of course, there are some highly problematic post-war housing estates on which a homogeneous population can indeed have very few social career perspectives, and there may be social ‘traps’, making it difficult for people to leave certain neighbourhoods. Some of these estates may also be characterised by other problems such as high crime rates and collective social tensions, which occasionally may even lead to urban riots. We can find examples of these estates across Europe. Local specialists and the population in general know where they are to be found. Not surprisingly, such estates are frequently stigmatised.

Nevertheless, academics should not draw conclusions too quickly on the basis of these individual cases. The fact that there are some particular estates that show many problems does not automatically imply that all post-war housing estates are problematic.