Residential Decay, Household Movement and Class Structure

Abstract

This paper, which arose out of research into ‘vandalism’ on council estates, attempts to relate the physical decay of residential areas to patterns of household movement. The latter, it suggests, are to a large extent an inevitable consequence of the highly competitive system of social stratification which exists in Britain. It is suggested that in this situation, the ability of the public housing sector to operate on non-market criteria is very limited; what happens, rather, is that its operations, and thus, the physical forms and spatial patterns which it produces, reflect the value-system of the wider society.