Mixed Tenure Communities and Neighbourhood Quality

Abstract

This paper examines the policy of promoting ‘mixed communities’ in the UK context. It describes the various policy instruments available for the pursuance of this goal and sets out the assumed benefits and underlying mechanisms intended to deliver beneficial outcomes, especially for disadvantaged areas. It goes on to analyse the effects of housing tenures and of housing tenure mix upon the incidence of serious problems and of the desire for local service improvements within neighbourhoods in England, using the Survey of English Housing. The findings indicate that the level of social renting is a more important influence upon neighbourhood conditions than the degree of tenure mixing. Furthermore, the findings provide more support for tenure dispersal policies than for tenure dilution strategies such as promoting a modest degree of owner occupation on social housing estates.

Keywords:

• Neighbourhood problems
• mixed communities
• housing tenure

Notes

¹ DCLG, Department for Communities and Local Government, formerly the ODPM, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

² There is also a preference model pertaining to out-migration behaviours (see Galster et al., 2000), but here we are interested in within-neighbourhood behaviours or problems.

³ The proportions of each tenure within each ward in England exhibit the following ranges: owner occupation, 13–99 per cent; social renting, 0–77 per cent; private renting, 1–72 per cent.