Questioning the Rhetoric of Social Mix: Courteous Community or Hidden Hostility?

Abstract

This paper explores the increasingly important role of 'social mix' in the management practices of the NSW Department of Housing. Social mix is a policy response to the many perceived social, cultural and economic problems related to the concentration of public tenants within larger housing estates. Social mix involves the integration and assimilation of public housing tenants into areas dominated by private home ownership and private rental. Such policies are based upon the belief that social mix has the ability to alter many of these problems simply through the presence of a 'community'. However, this paper questions the normative construction of homeowners as possessing a 'community' which, by implication, will be passed on to public tenants. Through an in-depth casestudy, it is shown that 'community', as constructed by social mix policy rhetoric, may in fact further disadvantage public tenants through processes of othering, stigmatisation and oppression, which operate outside these traditional understandings of community. In addition, this research shows that, rather than increased community integration, it is the physical function of neighbourhood and its direct role in service provision which is the most advantageous constituent of social mix for public housing tenants.

Social Mix and the Problematisation of Social Housing

“…The research was guided by a host of constructionist housing research (Darcy, 2007;Jacobs & Manzi, 2000;Kemeny, 2004;Marston, 2004;Mee, 2004;Ruming et al, 2004). This oriented the research towards methods that prioritise language, discursive practice and reflexivity and, emphasises the contingent nature of social reality.…”

“…The small body of literature that has explored the application of social mix policies in the Australian context raises concern about its suitability as a social housing renewal policy (Arthurson, 2010;Darcy, 2007;Marston, 2004;Ruming et al, 2004). This research has generally focussed on the embedded assumptions within the application of social mix, especially the notion of role modelling via propinquity.…”

“…Gwyther (2011) found that residents experienced less location-related stigma in mixed communities, yet those same residents felt that personal ties within these mixed communities were not as strong as within impoverished neighbourhoods in which they had previously resided. Whilst some mixed communities are found to avoid broader societal stigma-as aspirations for equity discourse attempt to achieve-in others stigma continues to operate at a neighbourhood level with social housing tenants being stigmatised within areas of mixed housing (Ruming et al, 2004). In the implementation of social mix in Riverwood and Telopea, addressing stigma focused on inequities caused by stigma at the neighbourhood level.…”

“…In response social mix has been positioned as a means of addressing social exclusion. This research, concerned with the adoption of social mix policies in the delivery of social housing, emphasises the need to better understand how social mix is implemented in practice (Ruming et al, 2004) and to unpack and critique the political, social and moral assumptions that underlie its roll out as a response to the imputed social exclusion of social housing estates. Engaging a constructionist approach, this paper explores the connections between social exclusion, social mix, and social housing renewal in order to explore the delivery of social mix in two social housing renewal projects: Telopea and Riverwood North in Sydney, New South Wales.…”

Social Mix and the Cities

“…Indeed, there are few studies that take these aspects into account. Some exceptions are Sarkissian, Forsyth and Heine (1990), Goodchild and Cole (2001), and Ruming, Mee and McGuirk (2004). Sarkissian et al (1990), for instance, examine some of the different policy goals attributed to social mix over the past century.…”