Broadwater Farm Research Articles

The housing crisis

A few months ago I took part in a gloomy debate about the housing crisis with the celebrated modernist architect Kate Macintosh. All the speakers had referred despairingly to the demolition of dozens upon dozens of London's housing estates—the ‘London clearances’ written about so cogently by Simon Elmer and Geraldine Dening in this Special Feature. When Kate got up to speak she talked about her experience of designing South London's landmark Dawson's Heights in the 1960s and the success of recent community projects in bringing North London's once troubled Broadwater Farm Estate together. ‘Does she not know it's also under threat of demolition?’, I wondered to myself. It turns out she did, with her voice cracking as she continued, breaking down in tears at the thought of what the community now had to face, despite all their efforts. Then she composed herself and continued. But as she returned to her seat she was tripped up by a misplaced lead and fell, breaking her arm. It was an upsetting incident and felt to me like a disturbing metaphor for London's housing crisis.

Rookeries and no-go estates: St. Giles and Broadwater Farm, or middle-class fear of ‘non-street’ housing

This essay offers an historical analysis of two kinds of housing. It proposes a connection between the densely packed housing of the poor in nineteenth-century London, the so-called rookeries, and post-war local authority built modernist housing estates. It argues that there are similarities in the spatial character of the two forms, particularly in the complexity of the relationship between the private and public realms, and that this, together with the close identification of both forms with their inhabitants, provoked similar responses in representation and action. The main body of the dissertation is based on historical analysis of two examples, the parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, London and, in greater detail, the local authority housing estate called Broadwater Farm, Tottenham, in the London Borough of Haringey. Alternating with historical accounts are descriptions and analyses of form and spatial character, and discussion of the ideologies underlying the responses (that is, the ideas that shaped the housing and urban forms, particularly those offered as alternatives to our case studies). Parallels are drawn between responses to the two forms studied in terms of the ‘fear’ in the title of the work, with an attempt to clarify where this fear lay and the nature of the responses.

Crime, community and the multi-agency approach: a critical reading of the Broadwater Farm Inquiry Report

A dangerous consensus is emerging on the desirability of a 'multi-agency' approach to community crime problems. In this article, the recent report of an inquiry into the Broadwater Farm Estate is criticised. Behind an apparently radical, oppositional stance lies a simplistic approach to 'community' , crime, and policing and 'the multi-agency approach.'

After the uprisings — social work on Broadwater Farm

After the uprisings — social work on Broadwater Farm

Imagery and reality in the Broadwater Farm riot

Imagery and reality in the Broadwater Farm riot