Dickensian blocks: East London's contemporary housing landscape

In: Soundings: a journal of politics and culture, Heft 60

Abstract

In 1969, Charles Dickens House, a twenty-two-storey tower block on the Mansford Estate in Bethnal Green, stood at the pinnacle of both high-rise living and utopian council housing. Its subsequent fate is emblematic of the precipitous decline of investment in social housing throughout the period since it was built. As the story of Charles Dickens House shows, much of the social housing provision made in the more poverty-conscious post-war decades has in more recent years been re-appropriated to benefit the rich. Housing associations are now facing financial difficulties. Their ability to borrow was the main driver behind their rapid growth from 1988 onwards, while from the mid-1990s banks and property developers were provided with various financial incentives, including government grants and subsidies in order to encourage them to invest in the regeneration of low-value, run-down, inner-city areas. When it comes to the fate of social housing in contemporary London, people increasingly find that they are once more at home with the Victorians. Adapted from the source document.