The New Towns were designed to avoid mainly working class housing and aimed to bring the social classes together in 'balanced' towns and to achieve actual social mixing at neighbourhood level. In the controversy about changes in social stratification, in particular the so called embourgeoisement of the working class, the New Towns have been held up as models in which this process is at work.
This paper examines the occupational class structures of New Towns, in particular Crawley New Town, in the light of such policies. A considerable degree of class balance has been achieved in the town as a whole but neighbourhoods have begun to take on distinctive class characteristics. However, the evidence as a whole does not justify the indiscriminate use of New Towns as 'models' for changes in the class structure. Finally, changes in policy in the New Towns are discussed in terms of the theory that British town planning is characterised by an 'adaptive mechanism' which facilitates such changes.
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References
1.
D. Lockwood and J. Goldthorpe, 'Affluence and the British Class Structure ', Sociological Review, July 1963, p. 138.
2.
D.L. Foley, 'British Town Planning. One Ideology or Three?' BrituhJournal of Sociology, Vol. 11, No. 31960, pp. 211-31.
3.
J.S. Buckingham, 'National Evils and Practical Remedies', London , 1849, p. 141, quoted in H. Orlans, Stevenage ; a sociological study of a New Town, 1952.
4.
Ebenezer Howard, Garden Cities of Tomorrow, 1902, reprinted 1965 , p. 51.
5.
Committee on the New Towns, Interim Report , Cmd. 6759, p. 2.
6.
Committee in the New Towns, Final Report, Cmd. 6876, p. 10.
7.
T. Young, Becontree and Dagenham, Pilgrim Trust, 1934, p. 118.
8.
House of Commons Debates, Sessions 1945/6 , Vol. 422, Col. 1088, 8th May 1946 .
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L. Silkin, 'Housing Layout in Theory and Practice', Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 1955, 1948, pp. 431-2.
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H. Orlans, op. cit., p. 93.
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National Council of Social Service, The Size and Social Structure of a Town, London, 1943.
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R. Glass, 'Urban Sociology', Current Sociology, Vol. 4, No. 4, 1955, pp. 14-19.
13.
Smailes defines a balanced community as one with a representative economic or social structure, i.e. 'one which conforms to that of the country as a whole'. 'Balanced towns', J.T.P. Inst., Vol. 32, 1945.
14.
Crawley Development Corporation, Annual address by Chairman, 1958, p. 7.
15.
Ministry of Town and Country Planning, Report of Study Group on Design of Dwellings, 1944, p. 61.
16.
F. Musgrove, The Migratory Elite, London, 1963, p. 108.
17.
The sources of the material in Table I are as follows:
18.
Crawley: 10 per cent sample of head of households tenants record cards carried out by the author with co-operation of the Research Section, Crawley Development Corporation.
19.
Harlow and Hemel
20.
Hempstead: Figures supplied by the Development Corporations.
21.
England/Wales: Census, 1961. 10 per cent sample, Occupation Tables.
22.
Greater London: Census, 1961. 10 per cent sample, Occupation Tables.
23.
Dagenham: The figures relate to the social class of employed males in the sample and were made available by the Institute of Community Studies.
24.
G. Brooke Taylor , 'Social Problems of New Towns' in Community Development, P. Kuenstler (ed.), London, 1961, p. 76.
25.
C. Turner, Housing in Crawley New Town, Crawley Development Corporation , unpublished, p. 9.
26.
ibid, p. 9.
27.
Harlow Development Corporation, Social Factors to be taken into account in the Selection of Industry, unpublished report, 1949.
28.
Crawley Development Corporation, Survey of Industry, unpublished, 1958.
29.
Crawley Development Corporation, address by Chairman, 1958, op. cit, p. 7.
30.
ibid, p. 7.
31.
Commission for the New Towns: Crawley, Report on Development , 1965.
32.
Crawley Development Corporation, Annual Report 1955-6, p. 149.
33.
ibid, p. 149.
34.
The relationship between central government, in this case the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, and the New Town Development Corporation, is particularly close. The Development Corporations are ad hoc bodies whose members are appointed by the Minister. The Ministry keeps in close touch with Development Corporations and has a much more direct control over them than over local authorities.
35.
Foley, op. cit, p. 214.
36.
Turner, op. cit, p. 7.
37.
See G. Pitt , 'Neighbourhood Planning in the New Towns', Town and Country Planning, July 1959, pp. 263-5.
38.
The differences are significant at the 2% level, X2 = 56'37, p<·02.
39.
Crawley Development Corporation, Reports on Tenants Records, December 1952 and 1960.
40.
Crawley Development Corporation, Quarterly Report on Tenants Records, 31.12.59.
41.
Crawley Development Corporation, Research Section, Information on House Purchase by former Corporation Tenants, unpublished, 30.5.60.
42.
Crawley Development Corporation, Annual Report , 1955-6.
43.
Crawley Development Corporation, Research Section, Distribution of Occupied Dwellings by Neighbourhood, 3.5.60.
44.
Sources for this table: (i) Analysis by author of tenants record cards of all heads of households vacating tenancies between 1956 and 1959 (2) total tenant population obtained from result of 10 per cent neighbourhood survey.
45.
Universities and Left Review, 'Impressions of two New Towns', Autumn 1958.
46.
Stevenage Development Corporation, Annual Report, 1952-3, p. 344.
47.
Information on House Purchase by former Crawley Corporation Tenants, op. cit.
48.
Universities and Left Review, op. cit, p. 21.
49.
Otis D. Duncan and B. Duncan, 'Residential Distribution and Occupational Stratification', Amer. J. of Soc., Vol. 60 (1955), and P. Collison, The Cutteslowe Walls, London, 1963.
50.
P. Collison , ibid., pp. 18-20.
51.
London County Council, The Planning of a New Town, 1961, p. 26.
52.
P. Collison , 'Neighbourhood and Class', Town and Country Planning, July 1955, P. 337. That migration from city centre to a new housing area has failed to produce middle class characteristics in a working class population is also illustrated by a study of auto-workers in an American suburb, Bennett M. Berger, Working Class Suburb, Berkeley, 1960.
53.
J.H. Nicholson , New Communities in Britain, London, 1961, p. 132.
54.
G. Pitt, op. cit, p. 264.
55.
G. Pitt, 'Leisure in a New Town', Town and Country Planning, March 1961, p.120.
56.
See Janet Madge , 'Some Aspects of Social Planning in Worcester ', in L. Kuper, Living in Towns, London, 1953.
57.
B. Heraud, 'The New Towns and London's Housing Problem', Urban Studies Vol. III, No. i, 1966, pp. 8-21.
58.
H.J. Gans, 'The Balanced Community-Homogeneity or Heterogeneity in Residential Areas', J. of the Amer. Inst. of Plan., Vol. XXVII, No. 3, 1961, pp. 176-84.
