Social Mix and the City

Challenging the Mixed Communities Consensus in Housing and Urban Planning Policies

Kathy Arthurson

• Publisher: CSIRO PUBLISHING
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780643096424
• eBook ISBN: 9780643104457
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

Concern about rising crime rates, high levels of unemployment and anti-social behaviour of youth gangs within particular urban neighbourhoods has reinvigorated public and community debate into just what makes a functional neighbourhood. The nub of the debate is whether concentrating disadvantaged people together doubly compounds their disadvantage and leads to 'problem neighbourhoods'. This debate has prompted interest by governments in Australia and internationally in 'social mix policies', to disperse the most disadvantaged members of neighbourhoods and create new communities with a blend of residents with a variety of income levels across different housing tenures (public and private rental, home ownership). What is less well acknowledged is that interest in social mix is by no means new, as the concept has informed new town planning policy in Australia, Britain and the US since the post Second World War years.

Social Mix and the City offers a critical appraisal of different ways that the concept of 'social mix' has been constructed historically in urban planning and housing policy, including linking to 'social inclusion'. It investigates why social mix policies re-emerge as a popular policy tool at certain times. It also challenges the contemporary consensus in housing and urban planning policies that social mix is an optimum planning tool – in particular notions about middle class role modelling to integrate problematic residents into more 'acceptable' social behaviours. Importantly, it identifies whether social mix matters or has any real effect from the viewpoint of those affected by the policies – residents where policies have been implemented.

1

Introduction

Over the past 30 years, Australia and other developed nations have experienced lengthy periods of robust economic growth and increased prosperity. The current instability in the global economy, which began at the end of 2007, and issues of environmental sustainability, given the finite nature of many natural resources, suggests that the levels of economic growth experienced in the past is unlikely to be maintained into the future (Hamilton and Denniss 2005). This increased wealth and prosperity has not been shared equally by all members of society, as evidenced by problems of social polarisation, in which residents characterised by intergenerational unemployment, poverty, crime and antisocial behaviour are concentrated in particular neighbourhoods. The most visible of these neighbourhoods, but by no means all of those characterised by socioeconomic distress, are areas of high concentrations of social housing. The media has given extensive coverage to the recent riots in Rosemeadow, Macquarie Fields and Redfern social housing estates in Sydney, New South Wales. The media representations of a socially excluded underclass have often problematised the issues of disadvantaged neighbourhoods, narrowing the debates to discussions about the social housing tenure. Specifically, through redefining the problems of disadvantaged communities as due to the homogeneity or lack of ‘social mix’ of residents, with dramatic headlines, such as ‘Housing policy “will create trust ghettos”’ (Bildstien 2005). However, it is important to point out that despite this focus of debates about social mix on areas of concentrated social housing, concentrations of disadvantaged households also exist in private rental housing, which do not receive the same attention. The omission of private rental from the social mix literature is problematic, as in Australia and elsewhere most poor renters are in private rental and not in public housing, and some of our most deprived areas have virtually no public housing (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2008; Yates 2008).

What is social mix and how might we define it? In the modern-day context, social mix is generally used to refer to the lack of variance in housing tenure or socioeconomic status. These terms refer respectively to the balance between social housing renters, homeowners and private renters, and middle-income and low-income residents within a particular spatially defined area. In delineating its usage, though, social mix is an ambiguous concept and it is not always clear exactly what is meant when it is utilised by different stakeholders. This makes it difficult to neatly classify its attributes. Social mix is frequently used interchangeably as a term to refer to housing tenure and socioeconomic mix. What is clear is that, although social mix and housing tenure mix are often used as substitute terms, they are not the same thing. Changing the housing tenure mix within a neighbourhood may not, for instance, lead to expected changes in socioeconomic mix. A pertinent example is the situation in which social housing tenants purchase homes through urban renewal projects. What ensues is a similar socioeconomic mix of residents as before but with a mix of housing tenures in the form of homeowners and social housing renters. Social mix is also sometimes used to characterise a mix of age groups. This aspect, for instance, is utilised in referring to the mix of youth and aged residents in different high-rise social housing towers, blocks of flats or groups of units. At other times, the term is used to describe the variation in the ethnic mix of residents, although this adaptation appears less common in Australia than internationally.

The debates around social polarisation and spatial segregation between different socioeconomic groups, and the perceptions of the problematic nature of concentrations of disadvantaged residents in particular neighbourhoods have prompted renewed interest by governments in Australia and internationally in ‘social mix policies’. These policies aim to reduce and reorder concentrations of the most disadvantaged members of neighbourhoods to create communities with a blend of residents across different housing tenures and with a variety of income levels. Intuitively for many government policymakers and urban planners, because concentration of disadvantage or homogeneity of residents with like characteristics within particular neighbourhoods is identified as a problem, the opposite situation, namely, heterogeneity, is seen as the pertinent solution. Attached to this ideal and drawn on to support policies to increase the social mix of neighbourhoods are expectations of improved life circumstances for disadvantaged residents.

While the title of this book stresses the city, most of the analysis will be centred on specific estates (neighbourhoods) of high concentrations of social housing where social mix policies are mainly focussed. The overall premise of this book is that we need to challenge the way debates about social mix and disadvantaged neighbourhoods are currently framed, rather than just ascribe to them. This chapter provides the background context and rationale for the book, introducing the major themes and outlining the structure for the chapters that follow.

The rationale for this book

Learning the lessons of history

Many of the contemporary debates about social mix tend to ignore the fact that ideas underlying planning for social mix have been around for a long time. There are some exceptions to this trend, such as the insightful work of Mark Peel (1993) on the planning and construction of the new town of Elizabeth by the South Australian Housing Trust (SAHT) in the late 1950s. His historical analysis demonstrates that attention to social mix informed the planning of new Australian towns and housing policy in the years after the Second World War. Building on Peel’s historical analysis, a principal theme of this book is that the importance placed on social mix in planning and housing policy waxes and wanes over time. Policy goals, expectations about the problems they can address and meanings and values embedded in the concept of social mix also vary.

This book seeks to enhance our current understanding of the political and intellectual agendas for social mix by considering its comparative historical context and the purposes for which it is used. It is critical to unravel these different conceptualisations and uses because policies can be driven by different agendas, and if the underlying beliefs and assumptions are not placed in their historical context, we may be doomed to repeat past errors. One of the central questions tackled here is how to interpret the recent revived enthusiasm for social mix policies in late 20th and early 21st century Australia, including determining the forces behind the contemporary linking of social mix to debates about social exclusion on social housing estates. This question is impossible to comprehensively elucidate without commencing from an understanding of the historical origins of social mix policies and the different notions of the term over time. The policy intentions, logic and objectives of social mix policies will be scrutinised, paying close attention to questions of why and how social mix policies emerge at particular times. Without developing these sorts of understandings it is also difficult to envisage new conceptualisations of the policy process.

In brief, the origins of the concept of social mix can be identified in mid-19th century Britain. Some of the early advocates and influences on the development of the idea of social mix will be drawn on to explore the history of the concept, including Octavia Hill, George Cadbury’s Bournville Village, and Ebenezer Howard’s garden city movement. The development of social mix policies in Australia in the 1950s and 1960s will be traced through to the re-emergence in the present day where social mix is a popular notion in neighbourhood regeneration policy. From this perspective, the book tackles a major gap in knowledge within the debates about social mix through exploration of the way the social mix concept has been used historically. It explores explanations of the meanings and values that underlie the associations between social mix and housing and planning policy, and the way the intellectual and policy debates have diminished or changed over time.

Conceptualising the expectations and evidence for social mix

The second aim of the book is to provide critical engagement with the literature and reconceptualise the debate about social mix away from a one-dimensional binary about propinquity of ‘well-off’ and ‘poor’ residents as a means for providing simplistic solutions to poverty and inequality. A key question is what are the principal arguments and debates underlying support for social mix. Contemporary policies to create social mix within particular neighbourhoods, for instance, are pursued by policymakers and planners convinced of the benefits. There is an assumption that spatial propinquity of poor and better off residents provides benefits, specifically for disadvantaged groups. As George Galster, a US expert on social mix, points out, one of the expectations of policymakers is that advantaged and disadvantaged groups will interact within socially engineered mixed-income neighbourhoods (Galster 2007). Other goals relate to expectations of reducing the stigma and poor reputations attached to particular neighbourhoods by balancing social mix. Some of the questions delved into in this book are, how have these underlying goals and expectations arisen, and are there any unintended consequences of these sorts of policies? The book challenges the contemporary consensus in housing and urban planning policies that social mix is an optimum planning tool. In particular, underlying rationales drawn on to support social mix policies are challenged, such as notions about role modelling and middle class leadership to integrate problematic residents into more ‘acceptable’ social behaviours.

Mixing methodologies

Another contention of this book is that much of the contemporary literature explores questions about the sizes and levels of the social and economic effects of social mix policies (the so-called ‘neighbourhood effects’ literature). These types of studies attempt to create and apply rigorous, quantitative measures and evaluations of the impact of different levels of social mix on various aspects of disadvantaged residents’ lives, including their health, education and employment prospects (see, for instance, special editions of Housing Studies 17(1), 2002; 18(6), 2003 and Urban Studies 38(12), 2001; 22(5), 2007).

As important as these studies are in adding to our knowledge, as others point out, a focus on quantitative findings alone could be misleading. The nub of the issue is that a holistic and balanced understanding also requires qualitative exploration of the experiences of neighbourhood residents, which may reflect quite different experiences to those intimated by statistical associations (Gwyther and Possamai-Inesedy 2009). There is a contention that, in the past and present, the views of the people most affected by the changes are little reflected (Darcy 2007; Arthurson 2008). Thus far, there are few explanations of how residents interpret changes to social mix or even if they think it matters or may ‘affect their decisions and therefore life chances’ (Atkinson and Kintrea 2004: 20). It is critical to have in-depth qualitative explorations of the knowledge and day-to-day effects of social mix from the viewpoint of residents of neighbourhood regeneration areas that have undergone changes to social mix (Rose 2004). Galster (2003), a quantitative specialist, adds fuel to this debate, also arguing that more qualitative in-depth analyses are needed to complement the existing statistical work on social mix.

This book aims to provide alternative insights into social mix, building on and complementing the existing approaches, many of which commence from questions about the levels and sizes of effects. It provides a qualitative perspective, engaging with the points of view of those most affected by social mix policies, the residents of regenerated social housing neighbourhoods, reporting on the findings of research conducted in three case study neighbourhoods in South Australia.

Contextualising arguments about social mix

Finally, much of the literature that evaluates the effects of social mix originates from the United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK). In the US, social mix policies are generally designed to relocate low-income African American and Hispanic households from ‘distressed’ neighbourhoods of concentrated poverty to private rental housing in areas with a wider socioeconomic mix. There, the programs utilise housing vouchers to ‘scatter’ public housing tenants across more prosperous neighbourhoods using private rental housing. This policy direction reflects the enforcement in law of the rights of African Americans to live in white suburbs. These specific types of programs, exemplified in the ‘Gautreaux’ and ‘Moving to Opportunity’ projects, have not developed in the Australian or UK context. The US debate about social mix is linked to notions of an ‘urban underclass’ and the idea that concentrations of social housing cause a culture of welfare dependency, social irresponsibility and problematic tenant behaviour. From this perspective, social mix policies are informed by the thesis that living among other similarly disadvantaged people detrimentally impacts on life chances and aspirations through the formation of a ‘culture of poverty’. The culture of poverty thesis purports that individuals outside the labour market are generally culpable for their disadvantaged circumstances (Murray 1984, 1994).

In brief, in Australia and the UK, contemporary social mix policies aim to stimulate social mobility and inclusion. The policies, to date, adopted in Australia more closely resemble those of UK regeneration policy than the US. The UK approach focuses on regeneration in situ and aims for dilution of concentrations of social housing, often through private sales of social housing to existing tenants. In the UK and Australia, social mix is often implemented as part of a broader neighbourhood regeneration framework that acknowledges that where a person lives affects their access to important services and other opportunities, and may involve other initiatives, such as employment and community development projects.

Hence, although the US evidence base is often drawn on to support implementation of social mix policies in Australia, at the heart of social mix policies are different explanations and social and political contexts for how poverty arises and is best addressed. Thus far, there has been only...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Index