Building the divided city: Race, class and social housing in Southwark, 1945-1995

London Journal

Volumn 33, Issue 2, 2008, Pages 155-185

  Carter, Harold ^a  

^a ST JOHN S COLLEGE   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CLASS; ETHNICITY; GENTRIFICATION; HOUSING POLICY; RACE; SOCIAL CAPITAL; SOCIAL HOUSING; TWENTIETH CENTURY; URBAN AREA; URBAN SOCIETY;

ENGLAND; EURASIA; EUROPE; LONDON [ENGLAND]; SOUTHWARK; UNITED KINGDOM; WESTERN EUROPE;

EID: 49349095070     PISSN: 03058034     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1179/174963208X307343     Document Type: Article

References (233)

1. For a recent quantification and discussion of London changes, see: C. Hamnett, 'Gentrification and the Middle-Class Remaking of Inner London, 1961-2002', Urban Studies, 40 (2003), 2401-26.
2. For voting behaviour, the different political implications of different forms of gentrification, and the discussion of class dealignment, see: T. Butler and G. Robson, London Calling: The Middle Classes and the Re-Making of Inner London (Oxford, 2003);
3. D. Dorling, 'Class Alignment', Renewal: Journal of Labour Politics, 14 (2006), 8-19;
4. H.D. Clarke, Political Choice in Britain (Oxford, 2004);
5. R.J. Johnston, C.J. Pattie, D.F.L. Dorling, I. MacAllister, H. Tunstall and D.J. Rossiter, 'Housing Tenure, Local Context, Scale and Voting in England and Wales', Electoral Studies, 20 (2001), 195-216;
6. H.T. Himmelweit, P. Humphreys and M. Jaeger, How Voters Decide: A Model of Vote Choice Based on a Special Longitudinal Study Extending over Fifteen Years and the British Election Surveys of 1970-1983 (Milton Keynes, 1985).
7. For a (contrasting) local study of the politics of gentrification in a nearby borough, see M. Clark, 'Race, Space and Class: Competition for Housing in Wandsworth' (M.Sc. dissertation, University of Oxford, 2007).
8. The difference between the means of the proportions of the non-African black population in Labour-controlled and Liberal controlled wards was highly statistically significant (sig. = 0.000).
9. Data available from author at: Haroldcarterμac.com
10. See Table 3. Owner occupied housing accounted for only 2-3 per cent of all households in the old boroughs of Bermondsey and Southwark by 1981.
11. L. Hanley, Estates: An Intimate History (2007) passim.
12. Similarly, there was no association between the presence of African immigrants in local authority wards and voting behaviour principally because of the timing of their arrival; by the time this second wave of immigration occurred, housing allocation policies were genuinely ethnically neutral, so new arrivals were widely dispersed throughout the borough, rather than being geographically concentrated.
13. This author is currently engaged in research on similar problems in largely mon-ethnic communities in northern England, including Sheffield and Sunderland.
14. T. Cantle, Comniunity Cohesion: A Report of the Independent Review Team (2001), 9.
15. G. Dench, K. Gavron and M. Young, The New East End: Kinship, Race and Conflict (2006), 215-27.
16. J.M. Jacobs, Edge of Empire: Postcolonialism and the City (1996).
17. D. Goodhart, 'Is Britain Becoming Too Diverse to Sustain the Mutual Obligations Behind the Good Society and the Welfare State?' Prospect 95 (Jan 2004);
18. B. Crick, K. Banting, W. Kymlica, J. Denham, D. Donnison, A. Etzioni, N. Glazer, N. Harris, K. Malik, A. Mondal, K. Nazeer, B. Parekh, B. Rowthorn, S. Saggar, S. Sassen and S. Spencer, 'Too Diverse: Replies to David Goodhart's Essay', Prospect 96 (Feb 2004).
19. D. Phillips, 'Parallel Lives? Challenging Discourses of British Muslim Self-segregation', Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 24(1) (2006), 25-40.
20. C. Peach, 'London and New York: Contrasts in British and American Models of Segregation', International Journal of Population Geography, 5 (1999), 319-61;
21. C. Peach, 'Does Britain Have Ghettos?' Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 21 (1996), 212-35.
22. L. Simpson, 'Statistics of Racial Segregation: Measures, Evidence and Policy', Urban Studies, 41 (2004), 661-81;
23. L. Simpson, 'Ghettos of the Mind: The Empirical Behaviour of Indices of Segregation and Diversity', Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A (Statistics in Society), Part 2, 170 (2007), 405-24.
24. D. Dorling and P. Rees, 'A Nation Still Dividing: The British Census and Social Polarisation 1971-2001', Environment and Planning A, 35 (2003), 1287-1313, 1309;
25. D. Dorling, 'Class Alignment', Renewal: Journal of Labour Politics, 14 (2006), 8-19.
26. C. Hamnett, 'Gentrification and the Middle-Class Remaking of Inner London, 1961-2001', Urban Studies, 40 (2003), 2401-26, 2416.
27. S. Burgess, D. Wilson and R. Lupton, 'Parallel Lives? Ethnic Segregation in Schools and Neighbourhoods', Urban Studies, 42 (2005), 1027-56.
28. T. Butler and G. Robson, 'Negotiating Their Way In: The Middle Classes, Gentrification and the Deployment of Capital in a Globalising Metropolis', Urban Studies, 40 (2003), 1791-809, 1806;
29. T. Butler and G. Robson, 'Plotting the Middle Classes: Gentrification and Circuits of Education in London', Housing Studies, 18 (2003), 5-28.
30. Peach, 'London and New York', 338;
31. R. Johnston, J. Forrest and M. Poulsen, 'Are There Ethnic Enclaves/ Ghettos in English Cities?' Urban Studies, 39 (2002), 591-698;
32. R. Johnston, J. Forrest and M. Poulsen, 'The Ethnic Geography of Ethnicities: The "American Model" and Residential Concentration in London', Ethnicities, 2 (2002), 221.
33. R. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York, 2000);
34. O. Williamson, Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications: A Study in the Economics of Internal Organization (New York, 1975);
35. C. Offe. 'How Can We Trust Our Fellow Citizens?' and J.C. Scott. 'Geographies of Trust, Geographies of Hierarchy', in M.E. Warren (ed.), Democracy and Trust (Cambridge, 1999);
36. R. Axelrod, The Evoluiion of Co-Operation (Harmondsworth, 1984);
37. E. Ostrom, 'A Behavioral Approach to the Rational Choice Theory of Collective Action', American Political Science Review, 92 (1998), 1-22.
38. S. Goss, Local Labour and Local Government: A Study of Changing Interests, Politics and Policy in Southwark from 1919 to 1982 (Edinburgh, 1988), 114-15, 163-78.
39. Southwark Local Studies Library (LSL) 301.543, Bermondsey Borough Council, A report on the work of the Council in connection with the Improvement of Housing in Bermondsey, 1949.
40. M. Collins, The Likes of Us: A Biography of the White Working Class (2004), 38-39, 103.
41. G. Robson, Class, Criminality and Embodied Consciousness: Charlie Richardson and a South East London Habitus (1997), 23.
42. LSL 301.543, Bermondsey Borough Council, A report on the work of the Council (1949).
43. These values were deeply embedded in Labour's culture from its early days onwards - see, for example J. Lawrence, Speaking for the People: Party, Language and Popular Politics in England, 1867-1914 (Cambridge, 11998) (especially Chapter 6);
44. S. Fielding, P. Thompson and N. Tiratsoo, 'England Arise!': The Labour Party and Popular Politics in 1940s Britain (Manchester, 1995).
45. Metropolitan Borough of Camberwell, Housing Committee minutes,
46. cited by Goss, Local Labour and local government, 57;
47. Bermondsey Borough Council, A report on the work of the Council in connection with the Improvement of Housing in Bermondsey 1949, 18.
48. C. Ungerson, Moving Home: A Study of the Redevelopment Process in Two London Boroughs (1971), 15.
49. S. Fielding, 'Activists Against "Affluence": Labour Party Culture During the "Golden Age", Circa 1950-1970', Journal of British Studies, 40, 2 (2001), 247.
50. D. Weinbren, 'Building Communities, Constructing Identities: The Rise of the Labour Party in London', London Journal, 23, 1 (1998) 47:
51. Goss, Local Labour, 54.
52. LSL329.Lab, West Bermondsey Labour Party, Annual Report 1947-48;
53. LSL329.Lab, Bermondsey Labour Party, Annual Report 1953;
54. LSL329.Lab, Bermondsey Labour Magazine, Nov 1953;
55. Goss, Local Labour, 42.
56. Goss, Local Labour, 45.
57. Weinbren, 'Building Communities', 41-5.
58. London Development Plan (1957) cited in K. Young and P.L. Garside, Metropolitan London: Politics and Urban Change 1837-1981 (1982), 225.
59. LSL301.543, Metropolitan Borough of Southwark, Housing: Borough of Southwark (1947).
60. P. Malpass and A. Murie, Housing Policy and Practice, Public Policy and Politics (1982), 61.
61. Goss, Local Labour, 57.
62. ibid., 71;
63. V. Randall, 'Housing Policy-Making in London Boroughs: The Role of Paid Officers', London Journal 7, 2 (1981), 165; Goss contradicts Randall on the detail of these events. Randall's contemporary account is preferable.
64. Young and Garside, Metropolitan London, 289.
65. see also: A. Coleman, 'The Death of the Inner City: Cause and Cure', London Journal 6, 1 (1980), 3-22.
66. Before 1965, census data are reported for each borough individually. After 1965, individual local-authority ward boundaries within the merged 'Southwark' broadly followed the original divisions between the boroughs. These estimates (and those lin successive tables) rely on tracing the old borough boundaries on successive digitised borough maps, and recompiling the data to the old boroughs by combining local authority wards. Where wards cross boundaries they have been allocated to the old borough which appeared from the maps to contain the great majority of their dwellings.
67. Young and Garside, Metropolitan London, 289.
68. Goss, Local Labour, 54.
69. LSL329.Lab, Bermondsey Labour Party, Annual Report 1961.
70. ibid.
71. LSL329.Lab, West Bermondsey Labour Party, Annual Report 1947-48;
72. LSL329.Lab, Bermondsey Labour Magazine, Nov 1953;
73. LSL329.Lab, Bermondsey Labour Party, Annual Report 1961.
74. Similar declines occurred elsewhere - see Fielding, 'Activists Against "Affluence"', 251-2, and 261-6.
75. C. Hamnett, 'Social Change and Social Segregation', Urban Studies, 13 (1976), 1-271;
76. C. Hamnett, 'Gentrification and the Middle-Class Remaking of Inner London, 1961-2001', Urban Studies, 40 (2003), 2401-26.
77. LSL.PC301.54;
78. C. Woolmer 'Down Your Way' (?1981).
79. Collins, The Likes of Us, 161.
80. Randall, 'Housing Policy-Making', multiple pages.
81. Young and Garside, Metropolitan London, 118;
82. Dunleavy, The Politics of Mass Housing, 118-20.
83. A. Ravetz, Remaking Cities: Contradictions of the Recent Urban Environment (1980), 44.
84. White, London in the Twentieth Century, 41.
85. C. Ungerson, Moving Home: A Study of the Redevelopment Process in Two London Boroughs, Occasional Papers on Social Administration, No. 44 (1971) 34.
86. LSL301.543, 'Local Authority Official Survey: The Housing Problem in Southwark 1950';
87. Surveys, 1, 1950, 95-111.
88. 1961 Census, Table 08, Table 23.
89. LSL301.543;
90. Mcintosh, Council housing, 20;
91. Randall, 'Housing Policy-Making', 170.
92. LSL301.543;
93. N. Ramsden, 'Southwark - The Battle Against Decay', The Old Lady: staff magazine of the Bank of England, 18 Jun 1979, 261-66.
94. Ungerson, Moving Home, 39;
95. Goss, Local Labour, 88-90;
96. Randall, 'Housing Policy-Making', 166.
97. LSL331.8, Southwark: Press release 04575, 29 Jul 1975.
98. 1961 Census, Table 15, calculations.
99. P. Prescott-Clarke, Living in Southwark (1976), 135.
100. ibid. p. 42. and Tables 4.59, 4.60.
101. LSL301.54, Southwark Civic News No 19, Apr 1992; Ungerson, Moving Home, 12-15.
102. LSL Video, Walkways in the Sky (1985).
103. LSLPC301, Building, 8 Aug 1977; LSL PC301, Woolmer 'Down Your Way'.
104. LSL329.Lab, Labour Party, Southwark Local Government Committee: Manifesto, Borough Council Elections 1986.
105. LSL301.543, Mcintosh, Council housing, 12.
106. LSL301.54, South East London Mercury, 2 Apr 1981;
107. LSL301-543, Mcintosh, Council housing, 2.
108. Prescott-Clarke, Living in Southwark, 11, 148, and Figure 118.
109. LSL301.54, T.R.J. Martin and T.R.M. Wilson, Housing and Community in Bermondsey, Bermondsey Parish Church (mimeo) (Feb 1974).
110. LSL301.54, Sunday People, 3 Sep 1982.
111. LSL301.54, London Borough of Southwark, Southwark Housing: Facts and Figures - March 1984.
112. LSL301.54, South London Press, 12 Nov 1991.
113. White, London in the Twentieth Century, 145;
114. Goss, Local Labour, 25, 47;
115. Collins, The Likes of Us, 186--87;
116. C.T. Husbands, 'East End Racism 1900-1980', London Journal, 8, 1 (1982), 3-26;
117. R. Mellish quoted by Goss, Local Labour, 96.
118. 1951 Census England and Wales: County Report: London, (1953), Table 19.
119. C. Peach, 'South Asian and Caribbean Ethnic Minority Housing Choice in Britain', Urban Studies, 35 (1998), 1657-80, 1659.
120. Ungerson, Moving Home, 15;
121. J.W. Henderson and V.A. Karn, Race, Class and State Housing: Inequality and the Allocation of Public Housing in Britain, Studies in Urban and Regional Policy (Aldershot, 1987).
122. And had their homes reprieved, by the revolt against demolition that grew in strength in the 1970s.
123. A. Coleman, 'Planned Housing as a Social Trap', London Journal, 12, 2 (1986), 172-81.
124. LSL711.3, Itinerary for a visit by Vice President Humphrey (typescript), 1967;
125. Dunleavy, The Politics of Mass Housing, 98;
126. LSL711.5, Aylesbury Development in Use 1973, Southwark Borough Development Department (May 1973).
127. Goss, Local Labour, 101.
128. LSL301.543 Ramsden, 'Southwark - The Battle Against Decay', 18 Jun 1979, 261-66.
129. A. Coleman, Utopia on Trial: Vision and Reality in Planned Housing (1985), 39, 92.
130. Times, 13 Jul 1987.
131. Times, 8 Feb 1987.
132. LSL3011-54, Southwark Borough Council, Housing: The Southwark Strategy 1994-1997 (Apr, 11993).
133. Times, 21 Aug 1990.
134. Daily Mirror, 21 Oct 1997.
135. LSL301.54, LBC News - Transcript of interview with Housing Chairman, 21 Oct 1985;
136. Financial Times, 10 Mar 1984;
137. Guardian, 9 Dec 1985.
138. J. Gibbs, M. Evans and S. Rodway, Report of the Inquiry into Nye Bevan Lodge (1987).
139. Times, 9 Jan 1987.
140. LSL.352.008#80.
141. Labour Party archive, Manchester: National Agent's Department Southwark Council box: Corespondence, 1991-1993;
142. Guardian, 3 May 1985, 19 Jun 1985;
143. Times, 2o Oct 1987;
144. Daily Mail, 8 Aug 1986;
145. Times, 23 Jul 1987;
146. Guardian, 2 Aug 1987, 1 Sep 1987;
147. Times, 20 Aug 1988;
148. Evening Standard, 19 Jan 1994, 26 Jan 1998;
149. Press Association newswire, 15 Apr 1991;
150. South London Press, 2 Feb 1990, 10 May 1991, 3 Jul 1992, 10 Jul 1992, 24 Jul 1992, 11 Sep 1992, 2.7 Nov 1992;
151. Southwark News, 11 Feb 1993, 29 Jun 1995.
152. Personal communication.
153. LSL352.008, South London Press 27 Apr 1989;
154. LSL301.54, London Borough of Southwark Whose Home? Housing Strategy Issues, The Next Five Years (1988);
155. Guardian 24 Nov 1989;
156. LSL301-54, Southwark Sparrow, 22. Jan 1993, 5 Mar 1993;
157. LSL301-54, Southwark Housing News, Apr 1990; H. Atkinson and S. Wilks-Heeg, Local Government from Thatcher to Blair: The Politics of Creative Autonomy (Cambridge, 2000), 172;
158. LSL 302-54, Southwark News, 10 Oct 1996.
159. Sunday Times, 30 Jan 2000.
160. McCarthy, 'The Evolution of Planning Approaches', 149.
161. P. Damesick, 'The Inner City Economy', London Journal, 6, 1 (1980), 32.
162. Financial Times, 4 Jun 1982, 8 Apr 1983.
163. Financial Times, 29 Apr 1983.
164. Financial Times, 14 Nov 1983: Letter from Chief Executive of L.D.D.C.
165. Financial Times, 11 Jan 1984.
166. LSL Video #1 - interview with Cllr. Tony Ritchie.
167. Financial Times, 1 Oct 1986.
168. Guardian, 17 Oct 1987.
169. London Borough of Southwark, Unitary Development Pan - 1995;
170. LSL711.3, Southwark Coucil Planning News: Bermondsey and Rotherhithe (Oct 1988);
171. Independent, 2 Feb. 1997;
172. New Statesman, 6 Mar 1998.
173. London Borough of Southwark, Unitary Development Plan - 1995;
174. LSL301.54, Southwark Borough Council, Housing: The Southwark Strategy 1994-1997 (Apr 1993).
175. For a broader discussion, specifically of gentrification issues in the riverside boroughs, see M. Davidson and L. Lees, 'New-build "Gentrification" and London's Riverside Renaissance', Environment and Planning, A 37(7) (1005), 1165-90.
176. 'Jam Tomorrow! Some history and notes on the regeneration and gentrification ofNorth Southwark + Bermondsey' (http://www.56a.org.uk./jam.html) provides a powerful (and hostile) account of the market-led redevelopment of North Southwark. See also: S. Brownill, Developing London's Docklands (1990).
177. LSL.352.008#74;
178. Guardian, 3 May 1985, 19 Jun 1985;
179. Times, 20 Oct 1987;
180. Mail, 8 Aug 1986;
181. Times, 13 Jul 1987;
182. Guardian, 2 Aug 1987, 1 Sep 1987.
183. LSL301.54, South London Press, 10 Jan 1989;
184. LSL352.008, Southwark Sparrow, 5 Jun 1992;
185. Telegraph, Financial Times, 6 Jun 1992;
186. LSL301.54, Southwark Borough Council, Housing: The Southwark Strategy 1994-1997 (Apr 1993).
187. Evening Standard, 24 Nov 1999.
188. Telegraph, 27 Sep 1990.
189. Telegraph, 14 May 1991.
190. Independent, 18 Nov 1990.
191. Independent, 4 Aug 1990;
192. Guardian, 12 Oct 1994;
193. Independent, 9 Sep 1994.
194. Independent, 18 Sep 1996;
195. LSL301.54, Docklands Forum, Race and Housing in London's Docklands (1993).
196. See: L. Hanley, Estates: An Intimate History (2007).
197. Financial Times, 22 Jul 1988.
198. Guardian, 22 Nov 2003.
199. Guardian, 7 May 1996.
200. Financial Times, 15 Dec 1999.
201. Birmingham Evening Mail, 13 Dec 1999;
202. Times, 9 May 2001;
203. Telegraph, 3 Apr 2003;
204. Guardian, 30 Apr 2003, 22 Nov 2003.
205. Times, 5 Oct 2002.
206. Independent, 20 Oct 2000.
207. ibid.
208. A policy which continued after Labour eventually lost overall control of the Council in 1998, and after the Liberal Democrats took power in 2002.
209. LSL711.3, Southwark Borough Council, Press Release, 17 Dec 1998;
210. LSL711.3, Estates Gazette, 6 Mar 1999;
211. LSL711.3, Estates Gazette, 13 Mar 1999;
212. Evening Standard, 6 Apr 1999;
213. Building Design, 26 Mar 1999.
214. Financial Times 29 Sep 2000, 5 Mar 1999;
215. LSL, 711.3, Estates Gazette, 14 Sep 1999;
216. Sunday Business, 5 Sep 1999;
217. Evening Standard, 11 May 2001;
218. Telegraph, 21 May 2000;
219. Independent, 19 Jun 2000;
220. Times, 17 Jun 2000.
221. Independent, 17 Jun 2000; New Statesman, 13 Dec 1996.
222. LSL711.3, Southwark News, 17 Jul 2001.
223. LSL301.54, Southwark News, 3 Feb 2000, 10 Aug 2001;
224. LSL, 301.54 Inside Housing, 21 Jan 2000.
225. Building, 6 Jul 2001, 13 Jul 2001.
226. Building, 29 Jun 2001;
227. Guardian, 28 Nov 2001, 2 Jan 2002;
228. New Statesman, 17 Jul 2000;
229. Evening Standard, 23 Jan 2002;
230. Southwark Borough Council, Press Release, 21 Dec 2001 - www.southwark.gov.uk
231. LSL301.54, Inside Housing, 4 Feb 2000.
232. P. Gould, The Unfinished Revolution: How the Modernisers Saved the Labour Party (1999), 3-12, 22.
233. A crisis made worse - at the end of the century - by the pressure on house-prices amplified by gentrification in parts of the borough, removing all but social housing from the financial reach of the families of most existing residents.