Tony Manzi

Gated Communities as Club Goods: Segregation or Social Cohesion?

Gated communities are normally presented in highly negative terms, based on the common assumption that they are a major factor in the intensification of social segregation. In contrast to received wisdom, this paper argues that the theory of club goods can be used to understand gating as a response to both real and perceived issues of crime, vandalism and anti-social behaviour. It is suggested that gating can help to foster social cohesion in an area or neighbourhood by involving a wide spectrum of communities and income groups to create management vehicles which can: reduce crime, protect parked vehicles, increase safety and enhance the local environment by preventing unsolicited entry. Through two case studies, the paper explores how communities struggling with neighbourhood problems including crime are using gating as a way of improving their environment rather than abandoning poorer areas of the city to find a safer home in more residentially segregated affluent neighbourhoods. If housing and planning policy makers are to take seriously a commitment to resident democracy and local participation, such concerns should not be dismissed out of hand as examples of ‘isolationism’ or ‘particularistic consumerist interests’.

Managing the 'Underclass': Interpreting the Moral Discourse of Housing Management

This paper examines contemporary housing management practice by attention to a changing discourse within social policy, emphasising duties over rights. Current policy initiatives are based upon concerns about the collapse of foundational assumptions and a perceived decline in moral responsibility. This concern is most commonly articulated in debates about the existence of an urban underclass, linked to anti-social behaviour on housing estates. The paper argues that a communitarian outlook has exerted a significant impact on contemporary initiatives incorporating a strongly judgmental bias. As a consequence, housing practice discriminates between behaviour in social housing and privately owned property. Drawing upon post-liberal perspectives, the conclusion suggests that the predominance of a deontological discourse has resulted in policies of social control of residents.

Evaluating the Social Constructionist Paradigm in Housing Research

This article considers the contribution of ?social constructionist? research to housing studies. The first part of the paper discusses ?positivist? epistemologies that have provided an implicit foundation for the majority of housing research. It then examines the philosophical suppositions that underpin ?social constructionism?. This is followed by a summary of the major criticisms that can be levelled against the new research agenda, alongside a review of recent examples of housing research that draw upon social constructionism. Finally, the paper considers the future of theoretical housing research and speculates as to what can be achieved by methods based upon a social constructionist epistemology.

Discourse and policy change: The significance of language for housing research

Abstract The paper reviews a range of epistemological concerns which are pertinent to the study of housing policy. It is divided into four sections: first, a formulation of language as ‘expressive behaviour’ is put forward to show that language is not simply a medium in which ideas and intentions are communicated, rather it is best understood as dynamic and integrally linked to relations of power and dominance. The second section suggests a methodology which can be applied to a study of housing policy and demonstrates with examples how certain words often used in the language of housing are necessarily linked to a wider cultural and ideological milieu. The third section explores how power relationships are manifested through language. To support these arguments the fourth section applies the methodology to examine the content of some key housing terminology ‘expressed’ during the post‐war period in the UK and considers the implications that follow from its usage.

Performance indicators and social constructivism: conflict and control in housing management:

As practitioners prepare to implement ‘best value’ models in housing management, it is clear that the measurement and evaluation of all aspects of service provision will have significant organizational consequences. This article argues that the use of performance indicators (PIs) reconfigures traditional power structures and mechanisms of control within organizations. Thus although PIs are generally perceived as valuable management instruments, we suggest that their privileged status in practice results in an oppositional culture whereby staff adopt strategies of resistance. The article is divided into four parts. The first part outlines our methodological approach. Here we set out the merits of a constructivist framework for a critique of recent developments in housing practice. The second part considers the background to the emergence of a performance culture in the public sector. By focusing on issues of power and conflict, the third part makes use of empirical research to highlight how the discourse of ‘performance management’ permeates housing practice. Finally, we provide some examples of other areas of housing practice, which can usefully be explored from a social constructivist perspective.

New Localism, Old Retrenchment: The “Big Society”, Housing Policy and the Politics of Welfare Reform

Abstract This article considers the ideology underpinning the 2010 UK Government’s welfare reform agenda in order to foreground what we see as the contradictions of localism and its justification in housing policy through the “Big Society” agenda. The article has three sections. It begins by discussing some of the methodological challenges that arise in interpreting contemporary policy and the value of a historically informed approach to understand the wider “politics” underpinning the “Big Society” agenda. To support our argument, the second part of the article traces the “localist” agenda back from the 1970s to the defeat of Labour in the 2010 general election to show how both Conservative and Labour administrations deployed localism as a justification for welfare reform and in different ways created opportunities for market-based reforms. The third section of the article considers the contemporary period, in particular the reforms presented to parliament in 2011 that offer new avenues for interest groups to influence decisions that hitherto have been mainly the preserve of local government. The conclusion provides a summary of the key policy implications and theoretical issues that arise from the analysis.

Promoting Responsibility, Shaping Behaviour: Housing Management, Mixed Communities and the Construction of Citizenship

This paper examines housing policies aimed at establishing mixed income communities. Based on stakeholder interviews and case study analysis in England and Scotland, the paper pays particular attention to the impact of interventions in housing management. The first part considers the policy context for mixed communities and considers the conceptual basis underlying contemporary housing management through discourses of culture and social control. The second part considers how this agenda has resulted in the adoption of intensive management strategies within mixed communities; illustrated in the development of allocation policies, initiatives designed to tackle anti-social behaviour, and proposals to develop sustainable communities. The main argument is that given that the concept of mixed communities is based on the premise of social housing failure, citizenship has been defined largely in response to private sector interests. This approach to management has been a contributory factor in the construction of social housing as a form of second-class citizenship.

Investigating the New Landscapes of Welfare: Housing Policy, Politics and the Emerging Research Agenda

Abstract As debates about housing form an increasingly important arena of political controversy, much has been written about the new fissures that have appeared as governments not only struggle to reduce public expenditure deficits but also attempt to address problems such as affordability and homelessness. It is widely anticipated that new conflicts will be played out in the private rental market as access to homeownership becomes unrealistic and the supply of social housing diminishes. However, what other tensions might surface; that hitherto have not been subject to the critical gaze of housing research? In this paper, we provide some thoughts on the nascent policy issues as well as the ideological schisms that are likely to develop in coming years, offering suggestions as to how the focus of housing policy research might be reoriented towards a “politics” framework to capture and better understand the conflicts that are likely to arise.

Interpreting multi-agency partnerships: ideology, discourse and domestic violence

This article examines local multi-agency responses to local domestic violence, in particular considering how the introduction of local Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRP) in the UK in the late 1990s affected service provision. Using a longitudinal case study, the article considers how feminist ideologies have been supplanted by a combination of judicial processes and bureaucratic politics. These developments are represented by three dominant discourses: ‘criminal justice’, ‘managerialism’ and ‘equalities’; discourses that have had a number of consequences in the implementation of domestic violence policy. The first is that a one-dimensional criminal justice discourse has displaced a feminist political, power and control, analysis. Second, the ascendancy of managerialism has allowed prescriptive short-term performance measurement to prevail over long-term ‘sufferer-orientated’ responses, and finally an ‘equalities’ discourse prioritized perpetrator initiatives and discouraged dissent. The result has been the dominance of the statutory sector, a marginalization of voluntary agencies and a partial alienation of women’s groups; a process which has proved detrimental both to the interests of female sufferers (who form approximately 90 per cent of victims of domestic violence) as well as voluntary agencies.

So many managers, so little vision: registered social landlords and consortium schemes in the UK

The broad trajectory of housing policy since the 1980s has been to reject the paternalism and bureaucracy of traditional local authority landlords and to encourage voluntary sector housing providers. The rationale for these strategies has been to use a diversity of landlords (to create synergy and avoid monolithic structures) and to encourage a mix of tenures (to develop sustainable communities and avoid ‘ghettoization’). However, to date the practical management implications of such schemes have not been subject to detailed empirical research. Consequently, this article considers the application of contemporary ideas about housing management in the UK within the context of a consortium development built in the early 1990s. Based upon an in-depth study of one of the first and largest housing association consortium schemes, the article critically considers the central management issues facing the different participants in the scheme. It illustrates how the management of the post-1988 housing association developments has brought considerable difficulties, which have been exacerbated within multi-landlord developments. In such cases the consequence has been to entrench problems of marginalization and social exclusion. The conclusion identifies the problems that registered social landlords will need to address if they are to improve their management systems.