Health, well-being, and social dynamics in mixed communities

The promotion of a ‘home-owning democracy’ in Britain was bolstered by the Thatcher government’s Right-to-Buy policy and from this point onwards a chasm opened up between housing tenures. This broadly speaking resulted in the categorization of owner-occupation as the tenure of choice and the social rented sector as the ‘tenure of last resort’ (Daly et al., 2005, p. 328). When New Labour came to power in 1997 the creation of mixed tenure communities was regarded as a key policy tool for tackling the interconnected problems or social exclusion manifest in the most disadvantaged and residualized mono-tenure, social rented housing estates. The thesis is concentrated on New Labour’s mixed community policies from 1997 until 2007. The study drew on the policy and academic literatures (area-effects, social exclusion and sustainability) which inform the concept of mixed communities and on health and place literatures (health inequalities, relative deprivation) to develop an analytical framework. The over-arching aim of the thesis was to explore the ways in which features of neighbourhood may impact upon health and well-being in the context of mixed communities. The research concludes that with regards to the bigger policy picture the mixed community policy agenda has put communities and especially disadvantaged communities at the heart of urban regeneration, social inclusion and housing policy. However, although this is to be welcomed the danger is that tenure diversification is seen as the ‘silver bullet’ which can be used to combat all of the problems which are often manifest in disadvantaged social rented housing estates