Urban regeneration, scale and balancing social mix

Recent Australian research maps the contemporary patterns of concentration of spatial disadvantage, due to structural economic change, across metropolitan cities and regional centres (Baum et al., 1999). Within these studies, the communities identified as the most vulnerable to change, in terms of income levels, labour force engagement and the presence of disadvantaged residents, are social housing estates and areas of concentrated low income private rental housing. In tandem with the economic changes, concentrations of social housing tenants have been perceived as having significant associations, whether rightly or wrongly, with a range of issues including anti-social behaviour, crime, welfare dependency and depictions of a socially excluded underclass eschewing work and disengaged from mainstream norms and values. These depictions have been reinforced over the past few years internationally by civil disturbances experienced on social housing estates, including in Australia (Macquarie Fields and Redfern in New South Wales), France (St Denis, Poissy, Clichy-sous-Bois) and the UK (Bestwood, Nottingham)...[Introduction