Estate Regeneration and its Discontents: Public Housing, Place and Inequality in London

Using original interviews with estate residents in London, Watt provides a vivid account of estate regeneration and its impacts on marginalised communities in London, showing their experiences and perspectives, demonstrating the dramatic impacts that regeneration and gentrification can have on socio-spatial inequality.

Public housing estates are disappearing from London’s skyline in the name of regeneration, but what impact is state-led gentrification having on London’s marginalised communities? Watt provides a vivid interdisciplinary account of estate regeneration in London in relation to key housing and urban policy debates, using original interviews from residents in some of the capital’s most deprived areas to show the dramatic ways that regeneration is fuelling socio-spatial inequalities.

Foregrounding resident experiences and perspectives throughout multiple stages of the regeneration process, he examines themes of belonging, place-attachment, community and home amidst the decline of London’s council housing estates and increasing polarisation between the have-nots and have-lots.