High-Rise Estates in Europe: is Rescue Possible?

Abstract

The article analyses the role of five European post-war governments in the production and organization of large-scale social housing estates based on the underlying belief in their power to reorder society through physical changes to the urban environment. The causes of the rapid social decline of mass housing schemes are linked to a mistaken concept of urban design, the scale of public interventions and the inadequate organizational framework adopted to manage the new communities. The resulting fundamental problems were exacerbated by social and economic factors. A radical change in direction among the main actors was forced in the 1980s by the crisis in housing conditions in the worst estates and the declining viability of social landlords. The alternative approach that emerged to tackle estate problems was more attuned to city dynamics and to community needs. Estate construction was a top-down form of social engineering based on physical form. Estate renewal was a bottom-up, organizational approach focusing on communication, social support and an emphasis on people-centred remedies which linked marginal estates into city structures.