ABSTRACT
When council housing was first mooted there was no apparent need to think or plan for the future of estates. It was tacitly assumed that they would develop into stable and permanent settlements, and that they might develop otherwise only began to be apparent with their emerging social and technical problems. Ultimately, the decline or even breakdown of whole categories of estate came to dominate public awareness and specialist research to such an extent that they crowded out those estates that were, presumably, maturing normally. Yet in 1980 only some 5 per cent of the total were recognized as ‘problem estates’,1 and it must be assumed that throughout most of its history the bulk of council housing functioned as the housing managers would have it, to give tenants ‘the quiet enjoyment of their own homes.’ The impression conveyed by the cottage estates and even many flatted ones, over the middle years of the last century, was of environments that were peaceful to the point of stagnation, where tenancy rules and management styles militated against any changes instigated by tenants, either collectively or individually.
