Council Estate Research Articles

How many general practitioners for 1433 patients?

Dumbiedykes, in Lothian, is an inner city council estate of 670 homes in Edinburgh. About half of the residents are registered at the Mackenzie Medical Centre. We ascertained the total number of general practitioners and partnerships with patients living in Dumbiedykes and determined the number of patients registered with each practice. We obtained from the community health index, which lists all patients registered with general practitioners in Scotland, the 12 postcodes of Dumbiedykes and the name of each resident's general practitioner. We summarised this list of patients according to each patient's general practitioner and grouped the patients into practices using a list of Lothian general practitioners by practice. In all, 1433 patients were registered in Dumbiedykes in 1993. The population of Dumbiedykes is relatively stable (only 7% of households had moved there in …

Victims of Development: Resistance and Alternatives

This combination of analysis and first-hand reportage looks at the connections between development, economic growth, social justice and the environment - not in theory, but as this tangle of relationships affects people in their daily lives. It is rooted in the experience and struggles of people all over the world - in the Himalayas or on the islands of Malaysia, in the slums of Manila and Delhi or the tenements of Sao Paulo, as well as in the inner-city areas of Liverpool or the council estates of Cornwall. The author argues that the Western path of development has brought at least two intractable problems. The first is the widening chasm between rich and poor, within countries and internationally. The second is the damage to the resource-base of the earth, on which all economic systems depend. With the end of Communism, the dispossessed apparently no longer pose any threat to this kind of "development". Relieved of the threat from the poor, the rich, only too aware of the environmental menace to their well-being, may be tempted to resolve it at the poor's expense. Avoiding this harsh possiblity is the objective of those seeking another form of development: one based upon a decent sufficiency for all, within the limits of what the earth can bear. This book aims to illuminate and champion that struggle.

Community survey of long term daytime use of benzodiazepines.

Media coverage suggests that many people are addicted to benzodiazepines and keen to stop taking them. Our recent efforts to recruit subjects into a programme offering withdrawal, however, had a disappointing response. As a result we initiated this survey. Our decision to study patients taking benzodiazepines long term reflects the current medical opinion that long term use is likely to cause problems.1 Subjects were recruited from a general practice serving 13 000 patients. The catchment was mixed, including prosperous suburbs and council estates. Using the practice's computerised records for repeat prescriptions we identified all patients taking benzodiazepines during the day and included those in the survey who had been prescribed the drugs for more than one year. Patients were interviewed at home. Psychiatric history and detailed histories of benzodiazepine use were taken. Patients …

Listening to local voices: adapting rapid appraisal to assess health and social needs in general practice.

To explore the use of rapid appraisal in defining the health and social needs of a community and to formulate joint action plans between the residents and service providers. Collection of data by an extended primary care team from three sources: existing documents about the neighbourhood, interviews with a range of informants, and direct observations to build a profile of the community. Council estate of 670 homes in Edinburgh. Perceived problems of the community and suggestions for change. The interviews and focus groups identified six priorities for change, many of which were not health related. These changes have been or are being implemented. An expanded primary care team can use rapid appraisal as a first step in identifying and meeting local health needs. It facilitates a multidisciplinary approach and complements quantitative methods of assessing need.

Violence, racial harassment and council tenants: Reflections on the limits of the disputing process

Abstract This paper outlines a recently completed study of racial harassment on council estates in an area of East London. The study is based on a wide ranging assessment of the effectiveness of anti‐harassment procedures operating in the London borough of Newham, a borough in the forefront of innovation in anti‐racism procedures in both the public and the private housing sector. The centrepiece of the study is an analysis of the experiences of a group of 30 families living in Newham council accommodation, through a series of open‐ended interviews carried out by researchers from the ethnic minorities, attached to the project, over an 18 month period. The 30 families were members of diverse ethnic minorities ‐Punjabi, Gujerati, Bengali, Afro‐Caribbean ‐ all of whom had experienced prolonged and serious racial violence in and around their homes. What the families shared in particular was a refusal to suffer in silence. Living in a borough with a strong commitment to protecting its tenants from racial harass...

John Hills, Unravelling Housing Finance: Subsidies, Benefits and Taxation, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1991. 334 pp. £35.00. - Ray Forrest and Alan Murie, Moving the Housing Market: Council Estates, Social Change and Privatization, Avebury, Aldershot, 1990. 129 pp. £27.50.

John Hills, Unravelling Housing Finance: Subsidies, Benefits and Taxation, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1991. 334 pp. £35.00. - Ray Forrest and Alan Murie, Moving the Housing Market: Council Estates, Social Change and Privatization, Avebury, Aldershot, 1990. 129 pp. £27.50. - Volume 22 Issue 1

Reviews: Migration and Labour Market Adjustment, Moving the Housing Market: Council Estates, Social Change and Privatization, Challenging Uneven Developmen: An Urban Agenda for the 1990s, Services and Metropolitan Development: International Perspectives, round Table 84. Deregulation of Freight Transport, City, State, and Market: The Political Economy of Urban Society, Conserving the World's Biological Diversity, Imagined Country: Society, Culture and Environment, Electrifying

Reviews: Migration and Labour Market Adjustment, Moving the Housing Market: Council Estates, Social Change and Privatization, Challenging Uneven Developmen: An Urban Agenda for the 1990s, Services and Metropolitan Development: International Perspectives, round Table 84. Deregulation of Freight Transport, City, State, and Market: The Political Economy of Urban Society, Conserving the World's Biological Diversity, Imagined Country: Society, Culture and Environment, Electrifying

Change on a rural council estate: an analysis of dwelling histories

Recent debates have placed considerable emphasis on the importance of rented housing and council housing in sustaining rural areas of Britain. This paper presents data collected in order to develop a different perspective on the role of council housing in rural areas. It explores the development and changing social role of a small council estate in Cornwall, in the South West of England. Using a dwelling histories approach, it draws on administrative and other records to provide an account of changing occupancy on the estate from when the first houses were completed, in 1927, until 1988. The paper provides both a detailed account of the changing use of the dwellings and the history of the development of the estate as well as engaging with broader debates concerning the dynamics of the housing market in rural areas, state versus market modes of provision, social polarisation and the changing rural economy.

Central/local interaction in renovating run‐down estates — the view of housing authorities on the estate action initiative

Abstract Both local authorities and central government (represented by the Department of the Environment, DoE) have responded to the pressures affecting the role of the council sector in the British housing system by attempting to develop new strategies aimed at management and maintenance. This paper assesses the stimuli which have led to the creation of one such initiative, Estate Action (EA). It also seeks to evaluate the extent to which EA has fulfilled its stated remit of helping authorities to innovate in order to revitalize run‐down council estates. It is argued that conflicting pressures within EA operate not only to limit some of its effects, but also create substantial difficulties for local authorities.

Mobilising opposition: The campaign against housing action trusts in Tower Hamlets

Abstract This paper examines tenant opposition to the British government's plans for Housing Action Trusts (HATs), using material drawn from a case study of the tenants' anti‐HAT campaign in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. After examining the HAT plans, the reasons for tenant objections to the privatisation of their council estates are explained. The political discourse of the anti‐HAT campaign is examined in order to assess the strategies by which support amongst tenants on both the affected estates, and in the borough as a whole, was mobilised. Strategies of resistance to the HATs were negotiated within the campaign through a constant process of discussion and debate about the purposes of the campaign and the construction of arguments against the policy. Central themes to emerge included a justification of the principles behind the provision of council housing; parallels that could be drawn between the HATs and the London Docklands Development Corporation; the notion that only tenant power could de...

Social change in outer city British public housing

This paper offers a detailed examination of the evolution of social patterns within a representative outer council estate in Birmingham, England during 1971–1981. The findings disclose several important changes including a growing association of flatted accommodation with smaller childless households and increasing social deprivation on the whole estate.

Household Life-Cycle Change in the Urban Council Housing Sector, 1971–81

Significant sociospatial changes have recently taken place within the British council housing sector. In this paper the evolution of life-cycle patterns on Birmingham council estates between 1971 and 1981 is investigated. An analysis of household life-cycle characteristics on 10 representative study estates is carried out using relevant census data. A more detailed examination of change within one of these estates is also conducted. Although household ageing in situ is identified as the primary process, the findings also indicate notable decreases in families with children on those inner-city and suburban estates whose dwelling stocks include high proportions of flats. Such decreases are consistent with recent shifts in local authority policies of housing allocation.

Class A drug users: prevalence and characteristics in greater Nottingham.

This paper reports on the prevalence of known Class A drug use in Greater Nottingham, a large urbanized area with a population of 472,285 in 1981. Use of a multi-agency enumeration technique identified only 170 users during 1985-86, giving an annual prevalence of 0.45 per 1000 of the adult population. The rates for opioid use and injected amphetamine use were 0.27 and 0.14 per 1000. Geographical analysis of the intra-urban residential distributions of the drug users identified statistically significant variations with the greatest concentrations occurring in the inner city residential areas, in neighbourhoods fringing major suburban shopping centres, and several council estates. Ecological analysis established statistically significant links between drug use and multiple deprivation, adult unemployment and crime.

Residual Religiosity on a Hull Council Estate

In the 1960s it was widely assumed that a process of secularisation was taking place and was likely to continue. Recent empirical data about a council estate, which among other things relate religious variables to age, are thought to throw light on such questions. These findings demonstrate that ‘religiosity’ tends to increase with age, but that for certain purposes important elements of residual religiosity remain. The decline in Sunday School is particularly noteworthy, and suggests a movement in the direction of a ‘voluntary’ church. Remaining churchgoers have a high level of commitment, suggesting that a move from church to sect can operate in the mainstream church.

Appropriating the State on the Council Estate

This article is concerned with the nature of consumption in an industrial society. It investigates the manner in which tenants on a London Council Estate have decorated and altered their kitchens. Striking differences in the ability of tenants to appropriate facilities provided by the council are considered in relation to gender, ethnicity and other factors. Such a perspective illustrates the dialectical nature of gender categories under certain conditions. It also highlights the dynamic potential of long-term consumption as an arena through which social groups attempt to transform alienable goods into inalienable culture, but are often unable to accomplish this goal.

Potential for Change An examination of Assertiveness Training with Severely Socially Disadvantaged Women

Assertiveness Training (AT) can be a means of developing a perceptual framework in which it is possible to analyse specific situations which have resulted in women feeling confused, frustrated and diminished. The focus and aim of AT is to engage in practising behavioural strategies which question and challenge the cultural roles and gender expectations which relegate women to an inferior status in society. It usually involves group members in identifying areas of common concern and then agreeing a programme of structural exercises. These enable the exploration of stressful situations and alternative ways of handling them. A course run for eight women on a council estate who have experienced negative labelling by virtue of their social circumstances is described.

Migration Decisions of Transfer Applicants in the Council Housing Sector

In this paper, the migration decisions of intending-transfer households in the council housing sector of Birmingham, England are investigated. The decisions are broadly conceptualized within the two main phases of the Brown–Moore model of residential mobility: (1) the decision to seek a new residence, and (2) the relocation decision (specifically, search behaviour and evaluation procedures). The data are based on an interview survey of transfer applicants on six contrasting council estates. The findings disclose that, although many households are dissatisfied with their present estate, ‘dwelling needs’ constitute the most important category of reasons for seeking a transfer. In terms of the relocation decision, most households exhibit highly constrained search spaces, and they evaluate alternative council estates on the basis of such factors as level of security, social character, general state of repair, and accessibility. Important variations are revealed among the decisionmaking procedures of subgroups of households defined according to (a) the type of estate where they reside prior to the proposed move, and (b) family life-cycle criteria.

Urban mental maps and housing estate preferences of council tenants

This paper offers an exploratory examination of the urban mental maps and housing estate preferences of council tenants. The study area is the council housing market of the city of Birmingham. The data are based on an interview survey of transfer applicants on six Birmingham ‘study estates’ which provide contrasts in terms of age and location. The findings generally offer support for J.S. Adams' sectoral mental maps hypothesis, although important differences are disclosed among the familiarity spaces of tenant groups defined on the basis of the study estates. The results are also suggestive of a general sharpening of preferences for council estates located inside the home sector, with tenants expressing a net preference for older suburban housing areas. Conversely, the least popular estates are located in the inner/middle rings of the city and characterized by relatively large concentrations of New Commonwealth immigrants.

Rescuing Unpopular Council Estates Through Local Management

Rescuing Unpopular Council Estates Through Local Management

A First‐class Environment? Working‐class playgroups as preschool experience

AbstractThis article examines the voluntary, non‐profit‐making playgroup as a ‘self‐help’ alternative to nursery education. It is an alternative increasingly favoured by governments as an initiative to accompany cuts in state‐funded services. The article presents data from a small‐scale, longitudinal and qualitative study of self‐help playgroups in inner city areas on council estates. It shows that the form and character which these groups take means that they cannot be regarded as an alternative to nursery schools in the provision of preschool education, which is what parents wish them to be. Working‐class women cannot produce self‐help nursery education when they lack the material and cultural resources, nor should they be expected to do so.