John Boughton’s book on the rise and fall of council housing couldn’t come at a better time, says Rosamund Lily West
‘Municipal Dreams: The Rise and Fall of Social Housing’
John Boughton
Verso, 384pp, £18
‘Municipal Dreams: The Rise and Fall of Social Housing’ walks the reader through the streets and the history of council housing. The book stems from author John Boughton’s blog of the same name. Both the blog and the book re-evaluate the often troubled history of municipal housing, urging us to question accepted opinions. The book deals with its subject in clear, chronological order; the chapters are divided up by time periods and phases of the development (and dismantling) of council housing. Refreshingly, Boughton emphasises the voices of residents, “the experts on the ground when it comes to their own housing”.
Boundary Estate, Bethnal Green, east London
Beginning in the Victorian period with the attempts of early reformers to deal with poor living conditions, Boughton uses historical accounts to vividly portray slum housing, warning against sentimentalising people’s lives there. He takes us from the first council homes to be built in Britain – St Martin’s Cottages on Ashfield Street in Liverpool – through to the London County Council’s pioneering Boundary Estate in Shoreditch.
Rushby Mead, Letchworth
After the rise of council housing, Boughton charts its fall. Into the 1960s, local authority corruption reared its ugly head, as well as financial incentives that encouraged building higher and higher. Build quality was compromised and, in an eerie precedent to failings at Grenfell, in 1968 Ronan Point in Canning Town suffered a partial collapse following a gas explosion, killing four people.
Boughton points out over and over how the belief that the market will provide decent and affordable housing is flawed”
In the 1960s and 1970s new legislation began to allocate council housing to the most vulnerable, and Boughton explains issues of housing need, race and class tensions in a sensitive and balanced, but unflinching way, always peppered with residents’ accounts of their own lived experience. He outlines how theories of defensible space and the perceived links between council estates and crime were misplaced but persistent, and helped cement the council estate in the minds of the public as a place of last resort – even somewhere to be feared.
Barry Parker’s plan for Wythenshawe, Manchester
As the narrative heads into the Thatcher era and on into the Blair years, we feel Boughton’s exasperation at the dismantling of the state. Concluding at the present day, with the failure of successive governments to deal with the housing crisis, Boughton points out over and over how the belief that the market will provide decent and affordable housing is flawed.
Du Cane Road, Old Oak Estate, Hammersmith, west London
‘Municipal Dreams’ is a must-read not just for those concerned with housing or the mechanics of local government, but for anyone interested in the social history of Britain over the last 150 years or so. Boughton reminds us of the human story beyond the architecture, legislation, corruption and politics involved in council housing. His book is a timely and urgent reminder of how our ancestors dared to dream. Perhaps a greater understanding of this hopeful history will enable us to move on from the current dystopic state of housing.
