On uncertain ground: being at home in the context of public housing redevelopment

Abstract

The recent global financial crisis increased the volatility of housing markets and furthered the ongoing disinvestment in public sector housing. This disinvestment has been manifest in urban restructuring programmes involving both the privatisation and the wholesale demolition of public/ social housing. For example, programmes like HOPE VI in the USA have radically altered the landscape of public housing through the demolition of tens of thousands of housing units nationwide. However, what of the people who occupied this housing, and what of the lives they had built there? In such a context, deliberating on the notion of being at home becomes a pressing task, necessitating serious consideration of the lived experience of place and place attachments among those who have been displaced by such programmes. While research has studied outcomes such as the quality of the new neighbourhood and household economic stability, it does not adequately address the lived experience of place and the disruptions that forced relocation can cause. This paper brings the literature on place attachment into the discussion of urban restructuring programmes and discusses the findings of several empirical studies on place attachment to provide a more complete picture of the impacts of such programmes on poor people. It demonstrates how place attachments in the context of public housing are complicated by poverty, power dynamics, ambivalence, and stigma, underscoring how attachments are formed through the interplay of policy and programme rhetoric, and the active processes of meaning making among residents. Policy implications of considering place attachments in public housing redevelopment efforts are also addressed.

Pre- and Post-Occupancy Evaluation of Resident Motivations for and Experiences of Establishing a Home in a Low-Carbon Development

“…The expectation of a strong sense of community pre-occupancy concurs with the findings from many studies on the important features of a home including the community aspects [34,35,41]. The strong sense of community and the self-reported thermally comfortable homes met residents' expectations post-occupancy, and are a positive selling point for future LCDs.…”

“…Security and safety [28,[34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41] A place to raise children and have relationships over generations [28,29,32,34,[36][37][38][40][41][42][43][44] An asset, a place to own [35][36][37][38]40] A place to spend time and undertake activities [32,37,40,41,[43][44][45] A place for privacy, a haven and being away from the world [28,29,34,[36][37][38]44,46] A place to do what you like in, a sense of control [28,32,34,[36][37][38][39][40]42,…”

Hoping for more: redeveloping U.S. public housing without marginalizing low-income residents?

“…Residents express a strong attachment to home in the face of serious crime, social disorder and deteriorating building conditions; optimism about change, in the form of physical and social redevelopment, tempered with distrust about the likelihood of implementation and positive outcomes; and an abiding sense of community mixed with questions about who is worthy of return (Manzo, 2014;Manzo et al, 2008). Residents evoke an ongoing ambivalence about public housing, which reflects the complicated relationship they maintain with these empathological places (Vale, 1997).…”

Social disruption, mine closure and housing policy: evidence from the Free State Goldfields, South Africa

“…Place attachment is believed to have a number of advantages: it promotes stability and survival, assists in achieving long‐term goals, ensures continuity, assists in creating a sense of belonging, and promotes identity and the development of both self‐esteem and personal aspiration (Brown and Perkins, ; Scannell and Gifford, ). Place attachment is often a stronger phenomenon among low‐income households (Manzo, ). In this regard, Fried (: 201) notes that although place attachments “are of relatively modest importance for many people in middle and higher social positions, they remain extremely significant for people at lower social class levels”.…”