Lessons Learned from a Pan-European Study of Large Housing Estates

Lessons Learned from a Pan-European Study of Large Housing Estates: Origin, Trajectories of Change and Future Prospects

Baldwin Hess, Daniel (State University of New York)
Tammaru, T. (TU Delft OLD Urban Renewal and Housing; University of Tartu)
van Ham, M. (TU Delft OLD Urban Renewal and Housing; University of St Andrews)

Baldwin Hess, Daniel (editor)
Tammaru, Tiit (editor)
van Ham, Maarten (editor)

2018

Mid-twentieth-century large housing estates, which can be found all over Europe, were once seen as modernist urban and social utopias that would solve a variety of urban problems. Since their construction, many large housing estates have become poverty concentrating neighbourhoods, often with large shares of immigrants. In Northern and Western Europe, an overlap of ethnic, social and spatial disadvantages have formed as ethnic minorities, often living on low incomes, settle in the most affordable segments of the housing market. The aim of this introductory chapter is to synthesise empirical evidence about the changing fortunes of large housing estates in Europe. The evidence comes from 14 cities—Athens, Berlin, Birmingham, Brussels, Budapest, Bucharest, Helsinki, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Moscow, Prague, Stockholm and Tallinn—and is synthesised into 10 takeaway messages. Findings suggest that large housing estates are now seen as more attractive in Eastern Europe than in Western Europe. The chapter also provides a diverse set of visions and concrete intervention measures that may help to improve the fortunes of large housing estates and their residents.

European cities
Housing estates
Neighbourhood planning
Residential planning
Urban change

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:599df667-6085-4967-979a-65510fa4485a

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92813-5_1

Springer, Cham, Switzerland

978-3-319-92812-8

Housing Estates in Europe: Poverty, Ethnic Segregation and Policy Challenges

The Urban Book Series, 2365-757X

Institutional Repository

book chapter

© 2018 Daniel Baldwin Hess, T. Tammaru, M. van Ham