Slums and Urban Renewal

Abstract

Slum housing is an all-too-familiar part of the British housing scene. In 1976 the English House Condition Survey estimated that nearly 800,000 dwellings were unfit for habitation: this represents nearly 5 per cent of the housing stock. When dwellings lacking one or more basic amenity are added to these, the proportion of substandard housing rises to nearly 9 per cent of the stock (see Table 2.1 (p. 17)). In many cases the problems associated with this housing are accentuated because it is heavily concentrated in particular areas; typically, parts of the older, inner areas of the nation’s towns and cities. A stroll around the London Boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark; of Moss Side in Manchester, or the near-by town of Salford; or Granby in Liverpool or the West End district of Newcastle; or any other one of the numerous older inner-city areas in Britain will indicate quite vividly the extent of the problem. In this chapter we shall focus our attention on these urban concentrations of slum housing by looking at their causes and policies for their renewal.¹