Castles in the Air? Landscapes and Gardens of Public Housing

3.The evolution of the Council Estate: ideals and realities
The biggest collective leap in living standards in British history was provided by the rise of social housing - an observation made in 2018 by Teresa May, then UK prime minister. Up till 1979 there had been a broad cross-party consensus on the significance of council housing, a fact well supported by statistics: in 1981 - at the peak of council housing - 31% of population of England and Wales and 50%+ in Scotland lived in 5.5 million council homes.
So why did council housing happen? 19c Britain underwent a rapid urbanisation based on the industrial revolution, this resulted in poor quality housing and living conditions. Concerns were raised about a working class population that was unfit and unhealthy for work and war.
Public health legislation in 1870s established boards of health, sanitary inspections, and standards for house building. 2.5 million 'by-law' homes were built before 1914. Philanthropic housing was established mid 19c offering investors 5% return, Streatham Street Bloomsbury - as shown in Luis Diaz' presentation Coming Home; (also illustrated in RIBA pix www.ribapix.com/model-houses-...) was to become typical 5 storey working class housing with balcony access; Peabody Square was designed to a different model - both to create a new type - new model -of working class ie respectful, hardworking and deferential. However the scale of the problem could not be solved by these approaches.
By end of 19c the growth of local government structure was established based on county and district councils, and new legislation for working class housing was introduced.
John Boughton examines the early influence of the Garden City movement and the changing nature of ‘Corporation suburbia’ as council housing grew in the interwar period. After 1945, new planning ideas emerged stressing neighbourhood and mixed development but were adapted with difficulty to the mass public housing drive of the 1960s and the rise of multi-storey development. The well-regarded low-rise, high-density schemes of the 1970s were seen as a corrective to preceding excesses. As council housing declined in the 1980s, regeneration schemes often revived more traditional streetscapes. Throughout this story, politicians and planners have grappled with social change, architectural fashion and the ever-present tension between high ideals and financial possibility.
John Boughton is a social historian, researcher and author of 'Municipal Dreams, the Rise and Fall of Council Housing' (2018), and A History of Council Housing in 100 Estates (2022). He is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the School of Architecture of the University of Liverpool and blogs at municipaldreams.wordpress.com