The big debate about today’s public housing is whether it’s
a commodity or an entitlement, depending on whether the opinion is from the
right or left wing of the debate. Th next issue, though not really a debate, is
who’s responsible for the terrible condition of public housing. Municipal
Dreams is all about Britain’s public housing (known as Council Flats or Council
Estates) and whether it’s a model of progress or a model of what to avoid.
John Boughton
begins with the origins of British public housing and how it replaced the
Dickens-era slums. Parliament passed a law in 1866 that allowed town councils
to buy land and tear ir down for new housing (an early form of eminent domain) though
there was no quality control. The author brings up a builder’s journal from
1869, which criticizes Liverpool’s St. Martin’s cottages for their terrible
appearance. Though he doesn’t expressly mention it, finding any kind of
financing for a building project would have been difficult in Victorian
England; it seems unlikely that British banks were eager to lend money to
builders, unlike the USA, where J.P. Morgan loved giving loans to big business.
The next problem is that nobody wanted to go into property management. While
the author cites some Victorian-era public housing that still stands, and built
with good quality, they are few and far between. Where would a town council
have gotten financing for a building project in the 1800’s? Did the council
members want to get stuck being a landlord? Who would oversee collecting the
rents and keeping track of repairs? It’s a problem that began the minute public
housing began.
Dullness and
banality are another issue in the book, not as pressing as quality, but still a
factor in the housing and its effect on the community. The author’s example is
the Becontree Estate, where all the houses are identical, and that was a shock
to the townspeople when it was constructed. They were used to the traditional
asymmetrical British architecture, where each house was built according to the
builder’s own plan. Then there’s the Honor Oak Estate, slightly less banal, and
recently refurbished. I suspect that one of the issues here is the fact that
the public housing was designed for multitudes, as opposed the one family. In
earlier times, a wealthy man would hire a builder to design and build his house
according to three things; the condition of his land, the needs of the
homeowner, and how much money they could afford to spend. Any builder in this
day and age will have to factor in the same three things, or it won’t work. But
in the origins of public housing, the builders were constructing a whole block
of houses at once, so there was no individuality to them. Then in contrast to
what I mentioned before, the land wasn’t always the best available, so you had
mold and damp. The residents had no say in the building process, and there
wasn’t much oversight to the materials used.
The next topic the
author writes is how the public housing was badly needed in the first place.
The old housing stock from earlier times was crumbling, and had terrible
sanitation (and probably a firetrap too) so it made sense to get rid of it.
Replacing the filthy housing could also prevent outbreaks of cholera, typhoid,
dysentery, and others. After WWII, not only were the old houses crumbling, but
a lot of them were bombed and burned. The city of Birmingham built the Castle
Vale Estate, with low-rise blocks and a few tower blocks, and everything was
great…until the shoddy construction began to fight back! First the pipes
leaked, then the leaking pipes were not replaced, then the leaking pipes eroded
the plaster, then the elevators broke down, windows got stuck, doors got stuck
(or wouldn’t close at all) and doorknobs came loose. Then the stuck windows let
cold air in, and the non-locking doors invited crime. It was the same problem
that the Pruit-Igoe houses in St. Louis had. Public housing is clearly a
problem for the same reasons, no matter where in the world you build it.
Recently, I
visited Liberty Plaza in Manhattan, and saw how it looked like a British
council house. The building is a tower block, with a plaza in the center, some
townhouse-style units, and a stairway entrance. There was no physical barrier
to keep trespassers out of the plaza, but the stairway prevented impulsive
entry. This is an example of designing a building for security, so that the
residents will be safe without the building becoming a fortress. It was built
with quality materials that lasted for years, and the property was maintained
daily, with littler swept up and graffiti painted over. There was retail space
on the ground level, generating revenue for upkeep.
The author does the
best research for this book. He covers housing estates all over Britain, and
explores their political and economic origins, plus the type of construction
used. After reading this book, the reader is left to question whether the
problem was the land, and architecture, the lack of maintenance, the lack of
funding for maintenance, or general neglect of the poor. He does not say
whether the public housing estates effectively Gerrymandered the votes, nor
does he say whether this was the design or a side effect. Maybe the reason
includes all of the above?
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