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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/19/grew-up-london-council-block-wonderful-place-call-home
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| I grew up in a London council block – it was a wonderful place to call home | I grew up in a London council block – it was a wonderful place to call home |
| (14 days later) | |
| At the foot of this blackened and devastating emblem of austerity, privatisation, and prejudice it was local residents, not the council, who assembled to support the survivors burned out of their homes. Their strength of community, their empathy and their tireless commitment to step in when the state did not, will come as no surprise to anyone who has lived in one of the UK’s many high-rises, council blocks, or so-called “sink estates”. Because while many denigrate them as “antisocial, high-maintenance, disempowering, unnecessary, mostly ugly”, the reality inside is very different. | At the foot of this blackened and devastating emblem of austerity, privatisation, and prejudice it was local residents, not the council, who assembled to support the survivors burned out of their homes. Their strength of community, their empathy and their tireless commitment to step in when the state did not, will come as no surprise to anyone who has lived in one of the UK’s many high-rises, council blocks, or so-called “sink estates”. Because while many denigrate them as “antisocial, high-maintenance, disempowering, unnecessary, mostly ugly”, the reality inside is very different. |
| At a time when many of the millions of people in the UK who live in high-rises and blocks will be looking around their homes with a new sense of fear, it has never been so necessary to celebrate them, and the communities that live within them. | At a time when many of the millions of people in the UK who live in high-rises and blocks will be looking around their homes with a new sense of fear, it has never been so necessary to celebrate them, and the communities that live within them. |
| I grew up in a block of flats in Bethnal Green, Tower Hamlets, in an area which has over the last 20 years come to echo the stark inequality and class divides of Kensington. When my parents moved in 30 years ago, it was a predominantly Bangladeshi community, poor and left to its own devices. Our flat was a local-council managed “hard to let flat” that had suffered smoke damage from a small fire, my dad remembers. “No one on the housing waiting list wanted the flat; there was the damage, and the fact that 90% of the estate was Bengali – it was considered a sink estate.” | I grew up in a block of flats in Bethnal Green, Tower Hamlets, in an area which has over the last 20 years come to echo the stark inequality and class divides of Kensington. When my parents moved in 30 years ago, it was a predominantly Bangladeshi community, poor and left to its own devices. Our flat was a local-council managed “hard to let flat” that had suffered smoke damage from a small fire, my dad remembers. “No one on the housing waiting list wanted the flat; there was the damage, and the fact that 90% of the estate was Bengali – it was considered a sink estate.” |
| When I was growing up, the front door was often jammed open by kids who had forgotten their key fobs, there was graffiti in the halls, and the rubbish bins were sometimes set on fire. Drug dealers worked the courtyards beneath the blocks, and still do. From the outside, these blocks could appear to outsiders to be alienating, imposing, isolated. But step inside and the story was very different. Make a home there, or in one of the other close-knit estate communities across the UK, and the view changed. For my parents, the density of communal life intensified when they had a child. | When I was growing up, the front door was often jammed open by kids who had forgotten their key fobs, there was graffiti in the halls, and the rubbish bins were sometimes set on fire. Drug dealers worked the courtyards beneath the blocks, and still do. From the outside, these blocks could appear to outsiders to be alienating, imposing, isolated. But step inside and the story was very different. Make a home there, or in one of the other close-knit estate communities across the UK, and the view changed. For my parents, the density of communal life intensified when they had a child. |
| “An invitation to help with homework was repaid with ferried dishes of steaming rice and dahl, various tools were lent and returned for DIY, I-just-need-to-pop-out-for-a-minute babysitting swapped for English lessons, simple repairs – like fixing a tap, became boxes of mangos. Soon we upgraded to baby birth celebrations, wedding invitations and Eid dinners,” my dad remembers. | “An invitation to help with homework was repaid with ferried dishes of steaming rice and dahl, various tools were lent and returned for DIY, I-just-need-to-pop-out-for-a-minute babysitting swapped for English lessons, simple repairs – like fixing a tap, became boxes of mangos. Soon we upgraded to baby birth celebrations, wedding invitations and Eid dinners,” my dad remembers. |
| None of this is unique to my family, and nor is it a fairytale. It will be familiar to many who have lived in close proximity with others in blocks and high-rises across the UK, where poor housing management – lifts breaking, communal stairs left uncleaned – does not always, as in JG Ballard’s dystopian book High-Rise, result in the eventual breakdown of the social fabric. Instead, it can engender a fierce camaraderie, community and friendship that cuts across class and ethnic lines. | None of this is unique to my family, and nor is it a fairytale. It will be familiar to many who have lived in close proximity with others in blocks and high-rises across the UK, where poor housing management – lifts breaking, communal stairs left uncleaned – does not always, as in JG Ballard’s dystopian book High-Rise, result in the eventual breakdown of the social fabric. Instead, it can engender a fierce camaraderie, community and friendship that cuts across class and ethnic lines. |
| Loretta Lees, professor of human geography at Leicester University, has conducted vast studies of high-rises across London. She is quick to dispel the myth that big blocks leave families isolated and unhappy. “One of the critiques of ‘streets in the sky’ is that they are not the same as ‘streets on the ground’ – that they don’t foster the same sense of community. But actually, people meet each other in lifts, foyers, corridors – there is exactly the same communality as in a low-rise.” | Loretta Lees, professor of human geography at Leicester University, has conducted vast studies of high-rises across London. She is quick to dispel the myth that big blocks leave families isolated and unhappy. “One of the critiques of ‘streets in the sky’ is that they are not the same as ‘streets on the ground’ – that they don’t foster the same sense of community. But actually, people meet each other in lifts, foyers, corridors – there is exactly the same communality as in a low-rise.” |
| People were killed in a horrific fire that could have been prevented had their communities been taken seriously | People were killed in a horrific fire that could have been prevented had their communities been taken seriously |
| The negativity inherent in the way in which we have viewed these blocks, for decades, has allowed those in power to discount the concerns of residents. People in social housing, many on low incomes, were killed in a horrific fire at Grenfell Tower that could perhaps have been prevented had they, and their communities, been taken seriously. But if you stereotype as a sink estate the homes of hundreds of people, or allow them to be widely characterised by parts of the press as benefits cheats, scroungers, lowly immigrants and criminals, and their fears and demands can be ignored without consequence. So it seems to have been with Grenfell. | The negativity inherent in the way in which we have viewed these blocks, for decades, has allowed those in power to discount the concerns of residents. People in social housing, many on low incomes, were killed in a horrific fire at Grenfell Tower that could perhaps have been prevented had they, and their communities, been taken seriously. But if you stereotype as a sink estate the homes of hundreds of people, or allow them to be widely characterised by parts of the press as benefits cheats, scroungers, lowly immigrants and criminals, and their fears and demands can be ignored without consequence. So it seems to have been with Grenfell. |
| These well-worn myths peddled about high-rise living and council blocks form a convenient part of a rampant privatisation agenda that aims to demolish and replace these towers. As the twin spectres of dereliction and privatisation haunt blocks across the UK, given fresh impetus by the politics of austerity, we must defend the high-rise and the council block with vigour. | These well-worn myths peddled about high-rise living and council blocks form a convenient part of a rampant privatisation agenda that aims to demolish and replace these towers. As the twin spectres of dereliction and privatisation haunt blocks across the UK, given fresh impetus by the politics of austerity, we must defend the high-rise and the council block with vigour. |
| We must be resolute to see them for what, in most cases, they are: thriving communities, symbols of diversity, resilience and empathy. They have a right to be taken seriously, to be made safe, and to be cherished. | We must be resolute to see them for what, in most cases, they are: thriving communities, symbols of diversity, resilience and empathy. They have a right to be taken seriously, to be made safe, and to be cherished. |