ABSTRACT

The scale of ambition was impressive, with mass production techniques used to produce subsidized council housing at an unprecedented rate and nearly half a million new homes added to London’s housing stock by the 1960s. The Mayor of London’s Housing Strategy called for the ‘vast development potential in London’s existing affordable housing estates’ to be unlocked through private redevelopment. The London Assembly estimated that in the preceding decade, fifty former council estates across London received planning permission for partial or complete demolition and redevelopment at higher densities. Piecing together the extent of displacement from London's council estates is a task that relies on combining data that indicates when households left a given estate as well as the locations they relocated to. The frustrations of trying to estimate the extent and form of displacement from London's council estates are manifold. The displacement associated with the renewal of London's council estates is rarely the product of a one-off event.