Mixed-Occupancy Housing in London

This book recounts an ethnographic study of a mixed-occupancy housing estate near the centre of London, refocusing the scholarly conversation around social housing in the U.K. after the 1980 Housing Act. Rather than examining the long-term consequences of ‘Right to Buy,’ such as shortages in local authority stock and neighbourhood gentrification, James Rosbrook-Thompson and Gary Armstrong instead investigate the changes wrought on the social fabric of the individual estate. Drawing on four years of ethnographic fieldwork, the authors explore the estate’s social mix and, more specifically, the consequences of owner-occupiers, council tenants and private renters sharing a cramped inner-city neighbourhood. Mixed-Occupancy Housing in London: A Living Tapestry humanizes the academic conversations around class, race, and gender in social housing through the occupants’ tales of getting by, getting along and getting out.