Social mixing or mixophobia in regenerating East London? ‘Affordable housing’, gentrification, stigmatisation and the post-Olympics East Village

This paper examines socio-spatial inequalities with reference to the post-Olympics East Village – the former Athletes’ Village – located in Stratford in the London Borough of Newham. The East Village neighbourhood has been praised within urban policy circles because of its mixed-tenure housing, including a relatively high percentage of ‘affordable housing’. It is also claimed to be a space of social mixing, including in relation to the rest of East London. This paper examines these claims with reference to research undertaken at the East Village with residents and officials. Survey data reveals how East Village is a majority white neighbourhood with a large professional-managerial ‘salariat’, and as such is quite distinct in both class and ethnic terms from the rest of Stratford and Newham. These social differences are reflected in the interview data which examine how ‘othering’ processes occur on the part of middle-class East Village residents, both externally in relation to the rest of Stratford, but also internally within East Village itself. These residents display a ‘mixophobic’ (Bauman, 2013) reaction towards Stratford via territorial stigmatisation, and towards East Village social renters via housing tenure stigmatisation. The aims of social mixing and affordable housing are far from being realised within the East Village regeneration scheme