Support and Housing in Europe: Tackling Social Exclusion in the European Union/Shelter Is Not Enough: Transforming Multi-Storey Housing
2002; Liverpool University Press; Volume: 73; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1478-341X
Autores Tópico(s)Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism
ResumoSupport and Housing in Europe: Tackling Social Exclusion in the European Union, Bill Edgar, Joe Doherty and Amy Mina-Coull, Bristol, The Policy Press, University of Bristol, 2000, 229 pp., £14.99 Shelter is not Enough: Transforming Multi- Storey Housing, Graham Towers, Bristol, The Policy Press, University of Bristol, 2000, 259 pp., £19.99 These are two books on related but dieuro erent themes. Graham Towers, an architect and town planner, had adapted his PhD dissertation for publication. It concerns the problems posed by multi-storey housing, primarily in the UK, and possible solutions. Bill Edgar and Joe Doherty, Directors of the Joint Centre for Scottish Housing Research at the University of Dundee and the University of St Andrews, and Amy Mina-Coull, a Research Associate at the Centre, have published the 1999 annual report of the European Observatory on Homelessness (EOH) of the European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless (FEANTSA), based on a network of correspondents in the 15 EU countries. Their report deals with the provision of supported housing in the EU. Both books address issues of social housing, housing design and amenities, and the needs of those occupying social housing. The central question of Shelter is Not Enough is whether problematic multi-storey estates can be modernised to provide good housing or whether the only solution is demolition. His answer is that they can be successfully transformed: They do not need to continue to deteriorate physically and socially. They do not need to be cleared away at great expense and replaced with new buildings of uncertain prospects. Given appropriate policies they can be regenerated as good quality housing. They can be reconnected to the urban fabric helping to generate physical diversity and social equity. (p. 222) Towers details the background and history of the development of multi-storey estates, which include five basic types. His narrative provides a fascinating history of how 1.85 million multi-storey flats came to be built in the UK, concentrated in five metropolitan regions. Certainly, the desire to eliminate urban slums, the need to rebuild after the devastation of the Second World War bombing, and the introduction of industrialised building systems to increase efficiency and reduce costs in and of themselves were both idealistic and utilitarian goals. However, lowered quality, reduced amenities and the social isolation attributed in part to the introduction of 'streets in the sky' (connectors) all contributed to increasing problems. The 1968 Ronan Point explosion and collapse was seen as the beginning of the demise of the tower block. The Thatcher policies of a right to buy in the estates, reduced support but with a variety of estate regeneration programmes, and more centralised governmental control are seen as leading to the further isolation of more deteriorated estates and poorer residents. Towers reviews these programmes and also reviews three alternative approaches-providing more security and surveillance based upon the views of Oscar Newman and Alice Coleman, modernising estates through major repairs (for example, the 'overcladding' process) and demolition. Towers cites an estimate that 30,000-50,000 multi-storey flats have been demolished to date. Towers rejects demolition as a wasteful and unnecessary solution. In addition to the physical improvements cited above, he points to a mixing of housing types and the adaptation of these buildings for special needs/social service housing (such as the elderly and five other groups which are identified). Towers provides a model regeneration framework and analyses five case studies. In making his argument, Towers says that the following six key issues have emerged: (1) many of the problems of multi-storey estates derive from economies made when they were built; (2) many attempted solutions have been partial or governed by single-minded preconception; (3) to achieve successful regeneration a holistic approach is required; (4) all types of multi-storey housing have the potential for successful transformation; (5) a successful strategy might not concentrate directly on the worst estates; and (6) there is a need for a diversifed approach which reintegrates estates into the wider community. …
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