The 100 council estates described in this book are domains with distinct cultures and reputations. To move from one estate to another is like moving to a different town, even a different country
. Dawson’s Heights , an estate in south London, is a ziggurat. Duffryn in south Wales resembles a giant snake.
Early council tenants adored their homes, which had modern conveniences such as indoor toilets. One resident described the Becontree estate as “heaven with the gates off”. They often paid steep rents for them. Councils tried to ensure that their new estates would be dominated by affluent workers; one was criticised as “dainty villas for already well-paid artisans”.
In 1966 Leeds City Council approved Hunslet Grange, a cluster of towers built from prefabricated materials. Richard Hoggart, a cultural historian who grew up there, called it “some of the worst, most crass and inhumane public housing I have seen in any developed country”. Demolition of the estate began less than two decades after it was created. Another council tower, Ronan Point in London, was so badly constructed that it almost demolished itself following a minor gas explosion in 1968.
Planners and architects sometimes built estates according to their own firm notions of working-class culture, and went badly wrong. Had they asked, council tenants would have told them their housing preferences were almost exactly the same as those of middle-class homeowners. As one resident of the Hulme estateput it: “We wanted more houses than flats, gardens, lots of greenery and safe areas for children.
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