Britain's council estates have become a media shorthand for poverty, social mayhem, drugs, drink and violence - the social ills they were built to cure. How did homes built to improve people's lives end up doing the opposite? Is their reputation fair, and if so who is to blame? Inhabitants? Politicians? Planners? Architects? Lynsey Hanley was born and raised just outside of Birmingham on what was then the largest council estate in Europe, and she has lived for years on an estate in London's East End. Writing with passion, humour and a sense of history, she recounts the rise of social housing a century ago, its adoption as a fundamental right by leaders of the social welfare state in mid-century and its decline - as both idea and reality - in the 1960s and 70s. Throughout, Hanley focuses on how shifting trends in urban planning and changing government policies - from 'Homes Fit for Heroes' to Le Corbusier's concrete tower blocks to the Right to Buy - affected those so often left out of the argument over council estates: the millions of people who live on them.
What emerges is a vivid mix of memoir and social history, an engaging and illuminating book about a corner of society that the rest of Britain has left in the dark.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
'A wonderful mix of personal and cultural history, this is a profound and fascinating book' Alexander Masters 'Articulate, savage, poignant, engaged and vividly descriptive. Hanley is as outspoken as she is unsentimental, [and] she writes social policy as if it were a branch of war reporting' Simon Jenkins, Sunday Times 'An engrossing story of council housing since the war... An absorbing book' Roy Hattersley, The Times 'An odd and obsessive book... Hanley herself was lucky and escaped the grim estate she grew up on, which she describes (memorably) in passages that read more like Lorna Sage's Bad Blood or Andrea Ashworth's Once in a House on Fire than as a work of sociology.' Blake Morrison, Guardian 'This study of the rise and decline of council housing is fuelled by unusual passion and vision' Evening Standard 'An account of council housing [that is] not just readable but interesting and moving' Scotland on Sunday 'Hanley's vivid, powerful book is about a dream gone sour... Her descriptions of hopelessness, drunkenness and yobbery in Tower Hamlets cry out to be engraved by a new Hogarth' Independent 'A rich, thought-provoking book... The heart of it lies in her vivid descriptions of how the physical walls of council estates can create and sustain what she calls 'walls in the head'... She unflinchingly details the the effects of an isolated, insular, monotonous, monocultural environment... It's partly harrowing and partly cheering and it's a tale well worth keeping somewhere in mind the next time you're laughing at Vicky Pollard' Observer 'Estates, a journey through the world of British social housing, is both a history and a personal reckoning... Hanley's referential framework is ample, bringing in an international angle while not forgetting the very British nature of the story. On the personal side, the story is made compelling by her closeness to the subject and fascination with class structure' Financial Times 'Both a solid history of public housing for the working class and a touching first hand memoir... The beauty of Hanley's book is in its mixture of diligent research and vivid personal memoirs... Depending on your past you'll read it with a thrill of recognition or a sense of revelation. A tremendous debut' Word 'Both illuminating and beautifully written' Spectator * '(A) passionate and engaging book... I think Hanley's book is destined to create a watershed in British housing policy; it's a slow-burn version of BBC's famous Cathy Come Home, the devastating 1966 drama about the destruction of a family through poverty and lack of housing which raised the profile of Shelter, launched just two weeks after the play was shown' The Observer (Will Hutton)
Sprache
Verlagsort
Maße
Höhe: 215 mm
Breite: 135 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-86207-909-0 (9781862079090)
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Schweitzer Klassifikation
Lynsey Hanley was born in Birmingham and lives in London. She writes for the Observer and the New Statesman. This is her first book.
