“Av Oiding the Mistakes of the Past” Tower Block Failure Discourse and Economies of Risk Management in London’S Olympic Park

Home , Aylesbury Estate, Grenfell Tower, Heygate Estate

“Av oiding the mistakes of the past” Tower block failure discourse and economies of risk management in London’s Olympic Park

Saff ron Woodcraft

Abstract: A powerful dystopian imaginary dominates political and cultural representations of Britain’s postwar tower blocks, which continue to be linked to social dysfunction and alienation despite extensive empirical research that challenges such claims. Th is article asks what contested declarations of failure “do” by examining how “tower block failure” is discursively deployed by placemaking professionals—planners, architects, housing managers, regeneration practitioners—engaged in the construction of a “model” mixed-tenure neighborhood in London’s Olympic Park. Examining how the aesthetic fi gure of the “failed” high-rise housing estate is confi gured in relation to the normative models of citizenship and community that infuse social and spatial policy, I argue “failure” is entangled with a speculative, future-oriented economy of risk management, which refracts wider questions about the nonobvious forms that power takes in the neoliberal city. Keywords: community, high-rise social housing, London, neoliberalism, urban transformation

Th e devastating fi re in Grenfell Tower (Lon- commentators—reanimated a discourse that be- don) on 14 June 2017, which trapped residents gan in the 1970s about the problematic nature in the 24-story tower block, killing 72 people, of high-rise living, in which tower block archi- gave renewed momentum to a long-running tecture is implicated in community breakdown: political and popular debate about the nature its form driving social isolation, mental health of tower block living and the perceived failure issues, crime, antisocial behavior, gang violence, of Britain’s postwar social housing estates. In and drug abuse. Writing the day aft er the Gren- the days following the fi re, a series of articles fell fi re, the Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins appeared in national media examining how an (2017) opened his opinion piece by saying, intersection of technical and political forces had “High-rise blocks are wholly out of place and produced a lethal set of conditions in Grenfell character. Rather, a modern, sociable city needs Tower (Hanley 2017; Khan 2017; Lammy 2017). neighbourhoods . . . How many times should Th e authors—politicians, journalists, and social we say it? Don’t build residential towers . . . Th ey

Focaal—Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 86 (2020): 69–83 © Th e Author doi:10.3167/fcl.2020.860106 70 | Saff ron Woodcraft are antisocial, high-maintenance, disempow- system (Glendinning and Muthesius 1994). ering, unnecessary, mostly ugly, and they can Th ese shift s, alongside processes of economic never be truly safe.” decline linked to deindustrialization, have seen, A powerful dystopian imaginary dominates over a period of decades, social housing estates political and cultural representations of Britain’s pathologized as “problem” places characterized postwar tower blocks. Constructed to provide by defi cits: unemployment, benefi t dependency, council-owned modern housing for working- crime, and immorality (Hancock and Mooney class families, Britain’s high-rise towers, along 2013; Johnston and Mooney 2007). Th is “ter- with low- and mid-rise housing estates, mate- ritorial stigmatization” (Wacquant 2008) of rialized the postwar social contract that off ered social housing estates and their primarily work- citizens “cradle-to-grave” state support in return ing-class populations, oft en in isolation from for labor and taxes. Similar forms of “welfare the impacts of wider economic conditions, has capitalism” (Esping-Anderson 1990) character- come to dominate discourses about place and ized by state-led modernization programs fo- poverty in the United Kingdom (Baxter and cused on mass housing, health, and education Brickell 2014; Hancock and Mooney 2013; Koch extended around the world, as indicated by the 2016) and internationally (Arrigoitia 2014; Fen- widespread presence of high-rise public hous- nell 2015; Pfeiff er 2006). Although social housing across Europe, Scandinavia, North America, ing in Britain has taken various architectural Latin America, and Asia. As a site where indi- forms—from interwar cottage council estates vidual, social, political, and economic interests to semidetached, precast concrete homes of the intersect, housing has long been implicated in 1950s and the Radburn-style car-free estates of moralizing discourses about the production of the 1970s new towns—it is the modernist high- forms of citizenship, family, and community. rise housing estate that has become the preemi- Insa Koch’s (2015) research on postwar council nent symbol of working-class exclusion and the housing in Britain identifi es that most estates failure of mid-twentieth-century urban policy. were built to provide aff ordable homes in “re- Th is article seeks to contribute a diff erent spectable working class neighbourhoods” for perspective by asking what contested declara- households headed primarily by men in stable tions of failure “do”. It examines how “place- and secure employment. However, the politi- making” professionals—planners, architects, cal economy of housing in Britain has changed housing managers, regeneration, and commu- dramatically since the postwar period. Since the nity development practitioners—engaged in late 1970s, successive British governments— the construction of Chobham Manor, a new from Th atcher to New Labour and the current neighborhood in East London’s Queen Eliz- Conservative administration—have pursued abeth Olympic Park, invoke the “failed” high- policies that have devalued and disinvested in rise housing estate as an aesthetic fi gure that state-managed social housing. Th e advent of sustains and carries forward in time the threat neoliberalism has seen government withdraw that new communities may also fail. Confi gured from the direct provision of many public ser- as a void sociality—an absence of community vices—health, housing, education, and security, understood in the normative terms that infuse for example—and open up these spaces to new, housing and planning policy in Britain—the non-state actors. aesthetic fi gure of the “failed” high-rise housing Th is new social settlement has reconfi gured estate of the past is deployed in these accounts the terms on which citizenship and access to state as a counterpoint against which to justify deci- supports are negotiated. Th e postwar “right” to sions and investments made in the present. In housing—and other publicly funded services— this context, spatial design policies, social pro- for working citizens has shift ed to a deregulated, grams, and neighborhood projects that are un- fi nancialized, and primarily market-led housing derstood to engender a sense of community are “Avoiding the mistakes of the past” | 71 enacted to mitigate future risks. Th e arguments previously occupied by the state and state agen- made here are based on ethnographic fi eldwork, cies. In the case of Chobham Manor, these ac- carried out between 2013 and 2016, following tors include the London Legacy Development the work of Chobham Manor’s placemaking Corporation (LLDC), a quango with both stat- team as they participated in public planning utory planning and regeneration development meetings and community consultations, took responsibilities; and Chobham Manor LLP, a part in private meetings and conversations, and joint venture partnership between private-sec- engaged with a series of wider debates about tor housebuilder Taylor Wimpey and housing planning, housing, and regeneration that took association London & Quadrant, a “social busi- the form of new research, industry events, and ness” and regulated charity. dialogues among practitioners and policy mak- By documenting the everyday practices of ers. Examining “tower block failure” discourse this group of professionals, what Paul du Gay ethnographically, this article takes a situated (2008) terms the ethical conducts of offi ce, the deployment of failure as a starting point from discussion that follows aims to illuminate how which to unpack its nonobvious meanings and discourse and decision-making intersect in to consider the implications for understanding placemaking practices, and to bring forth voices wider processes of urban transformation. that are less commonly heard in anthropolog- While London’s Olympic Park is the setting ical accounts of urban planning, housing, and for this research, this article does not directly en- regeneration. In this sense, the article engages gage with literature about the politics of mega- with Laura Bear and Nayanika Mathur’s (2015) events or the emerging outcomes of legacy re- call for greater attention to be paid to the forms generation in East London. Analyzing the social of institutional space and bureaucratic practice and economic benefi ts of Olympic Games is a in which radically diff erent notions of public fi eld of scholarship in its own right (Baade and goods and the social contract are negotiated. Matheson 2016; Gaff ney 2010; Poynter and Viehoff 2015; Zimbalist 2015), and an extensive cross-disciplinary literature addresses var- Architecture for “more community” ious dimensions of London’s Olympic legacy, in the Olympic Park including work on regeneration (Evans 2016; Ryan-Collins et al. 2017; Ward 2013) and hous- In 2010, the Olympic Park Legacy Company ing, gentrifi cation, and displacement (Bern- (OPLC), the predecessor agency to the current stock 2014; Cohen 2013; Watt 2013). Instead, London Legacy Development Corporation, un- Chobham Manor is treated here as metonymic veiled its revised master plan: a vision for fi ve, of the large-scale, multistakeholder regeneration primarily family-focused neighborhoods, draw- projects that characterize much contemporary ing on London’s traditional housing typologies, urban development in the United Kingdom, replaced the outline master plan approved in in which public-private partnerships combine 2004, which had proposed 10,000 to 12,000 government land and grants with private invest- new homes in high-density, high-rise apartment in residential and commercial assets to ment blocks. Th e earlier high-rise vision was underwrite the provision of social housing and rejected in favor of an urban form felt to be public space—a model that Erik Swyngedouw more “characteristically London”: terraced hous- and colleagues (2002) describe as neoliberal ur- ing of various types within a pattern of streets, banization. Catherine Alexander and colleagues neighborhood parks, and squares. Th e new mas- (2018) observe how, in the context of housing, ter plan was inspired by London’s seventeenth- such partnerships bring non-state actors (hous- and eighteenth-century great estates, places ing associations, housebuilders, land develop- like Bloomsbury and Belgravia, which were the ers, and mortgage lenders) into spaces and roles purpose-built neighborhoods of their time. Th e 72 | Saff ron Woodcraft master plan narrative attributes the enduring Olympic bid team as a catalyst for investment popularity of the great estates to their village-like and development that would “change the face form—confi gured around urban blocks, ter- of the capital forever” (Tribe quoted in Vijay races, and streets—and human proportions that 2015: 427). In addition to planned new neigh- can accommodate adjustments in scale from borhoods, the legacy program will create public large townhouses to middle-class terraces and spaces, schools, university campuses, cultural workers cottages (see Figure 1). Th is fl exibility institutions, and commercial space for major is contrasted to tower blocks, whose “singularity corporations and tech start-ups—making it one of form and scale is resistant to change and rein- of the United Kingdom’s largest and most high- terpretation” (OPLC 2011: 51). profi le regeneration initiatives. Th e fi ve legacy Chobham Manor is the fi rst of fi ve new neighborhoods have been conceived of as a neighborhoods to be constructed in the Olym- model for twenty-fi rst-century urban develop- pic Park as part of a major regeneration pro- ment (DCMS 2008) and, in this sense, mate- gram that constitutes the legacy of the 2012 rialize current policy and planning ideals to Olympiad, which were envisaged by London’s create “mixed” neighborhoods that become

Figure : Chobham Manor’s “pro-social” urban block and street confi guration (© Saff ron Wood- craft , September 2018). “Avoiding the mistakes of the past” | 73 socially cohesive, thriving communities. Chob- slippage evident during my fi eldwork, in which ham Manor, like the other proposed Legacy high-rise housing was frequently discussed in Communities Scheme neighborhoods, is a generic terms as a problematic architectural and mixed-tenure, mixed-use neighborhood, which social form. on completion in 2021 will provide about eight Th e discursive construction of social “prob- hundred homes for private sale and “aff ordable” lems” that connect housing, poverty, and place, housing to rent.1 and how such discourses are deployed in sup- When the revised master plan was made port of urban renewal and poverty reduction public, then Chair of the OPLC Margaret Ford programs that favor the demolition of social described the new vision to Th e Architects’ Jour- housing and displacement of working-class pop- nal as “a stronger masterplan with much more ulations have been closely documented (Arri- community” (Fulcher 2010). Ford’s statement goitia 2014; Jacobs et al. 2003; Pfeiff er 2006), as seems to suggest the strength of the revised have the classed nature of such problematizing master plan lies in its capacity to produce “more discourses and the elisions that occur when community”—a claim that assumes changing distinct analytical concepts—class, citizenship, the spatial and architectural confi guration of poverty, place—are confl ated into a moralizing the Park’s new neighborhoods will also change shorthand (see, e.g., Hanley 2007; Mckenzie their social nature. In this case, Ford’s statement 2015; Slater 2016b). However, the postwar tower implies that changing the proposed spatial and block has become a cultural trope—a classed architectural form is a question of value: if the shorthand for urban life gone wrong—with an measure of future success is “more community,” established place in media headlines, television which built form will be the most socially pro- drama, documentary, literature, art, and adver- ductive? Chobham Manor’s reimagined urban tising2 (see Figure 2). Th is trope is frequently village of streets and terraced housing is pre- called upon by politicians and public commen- sented as agentive: engendering the forms of tators to convey the societal risks of alienation. sociality that support community formation In January 2016, then Prime Minister David and, ultimately, success. Implicit in Ford’s state- Cameron announced “an all-out assault on ment is the supposition that high-rise architec- poverty and disadvantage” as a key goal of his ture produces “less community” than the urban second term in offi ce. Setting out his agenda in block/terraced dwelling composition of the a Times article, Cameron listed the problems revised master plan. Yet, British cities like Lon- limiting life chances in Britain—blocked oppor- don and Manchester have seen a renaissance tunity, poor parenting, addiction, mental health in high-rise living since the late 1990s (Baxter issues—and linked these to postwar tower and Lees 2009): 510 towers more than 20 stories blocks, arguing: “Th ere’s one issue that brings high are currently in London’s planning pipeline together many of these social problems—and (New London Architecture 2018)—both “elite” for me, epitomizes both the scale of the chal- towers such as the 50-story One Blackfriars and lenge we face and the nature of state failure the rash of new, mixed-tenure high-rises on for- over decades. It’s our housing estates” (Shipman mer postwar housing estates such as Aberfeldy 2016). Th e article goes on to portray postwar Village (formerly Aberfeldy Estate) in Poplar housing estates as spaces that are “outside” so- (East London), and Elephant Park on the for- ciety, depicting them as “cut-off , self-governing mer site of the Heygate Estate in South London. and divorced from the mainstream”—marginal Th is tension points to both the prevalence and spaces that pose a threat of social contamina- the elasticity of the tower block as a shorthand tion to the wider population as problems are for failure and the nonobvious meanings that allowed to “fester” and “grow unseen.” are invested in this discourse. Furthermore, Connecting architectural form and deviance Ford’s statement is illustrative of the linguistic in this way, while discounting radical changes 74 | Saff ron Woodcraft

Figure : Footbridge on “decanted” Heygate Estate, South London (© Saff ron Woodcraft , June 2014). to the political economy of housing, Cameron’s gaze of “civilized” society (Gilbert 2007; Wohl words both perpetuate the stigmatizing dis- 2002). Th e notion that moral and physical con- courses discussed above and consolidate the ditions are aligned was suffi cient justifi cation central claim of “tower-block failure” in Brit- for Victorian reformers to support slum demo- ain: that there exists a straightforward relation litions and rehousing the urban poor in model between high-rise form, social alienation, and dwellings designed embody middle-class mo- crime. Cameron’s suggestion that high-rise es- ralities (Gaskell 1987). Cameron’s estate renewal tates are self-governing implies a systemic pat- policy follows the same logic. His proposal to terning of alterity, something comparable to a “tear down anything that stands in our way” “tower-block culture” characterized by a Durk- reasons that remaking the physical environment heimian (1889) “anomie,” that poses a threat to will assimilate what Talal Asad (2004) calls the wider society and must be contained. However, dangerous bodies and territories that exist at the the postwar tower block is merely the latest it- physical and metaphorical margins of the state. eration of a moralizing discourse that demon- izes the urban poor and connects housing and spatial form to deviant behaviors. Victorian “Avoiding the mistakes of the past” housing reformers generated their own “failure” discourse around the slums of London’s urban In April 2013, I began fi eldwork observing the poor, which were described as plague-ridden decision-making processes of the Chobham moral swamps, whose narrow alleys enabled Manor development team as they sought to crime and encouraged criminals by eluding the materialize the Olympic legacy vision. Early “Avoiding the mistakes of the past” | 75 conversations and meetings focused on explor- the surface, appeared to suggest people held ing which aspects of imagining and building a the same views in fact expressed quite diff erent new community mattered to diff erent individ- interpretations and intentions. Individuals held uals, how community was conceptualized, and varied opinions about whether architectural what infl uenced these ideas. A predominant form, housing policy (tenancy allocations, es- concern—“getting it right” and “avoiding the tate management, tenants’ right to buy council mistakes of the past”—surfaced early in my housing), or the changing economics of social fi rst conversation with a community develop- housing were to blame. In a conversation with a ment offi cer from Chobham Manor’s housing local politician about the legacy neighborhoods, association. Over the months that followed, the he explained his use of the phrase “avoiding past same phrase—“avoiding the mistakes of the mistakes” unequivocally referred to a specifi c past”—was spontaneously invoked on numer- set of social conditions associated with high- ous occasions and in various fi eldwork contexts: rise council housing—unemployment, welfare from discussions about materials, to plans and dependency, and antisocial behavior. However, policies determining the relationship between it also became clear that his use of the short- public and private space, and the potentials for hand contained assumptions about the success community gardening, apartment balconies, of specifi c policies, both past and present—such and satellite TV aerials, to support or disrupt as the undesirability of mono-tenure estates and the “making” of community. On each occasion, a preference to allocate housing to in-work fam- the speaker would discuss a particular design ilies. Referring to a well-known tower block in choice, community project, or potential invest- East London, he said: “We don’t want to develop ment in relation to the desire to “avoid the mis- a new generation of sink estates with no-one takes of the past,” yet off ered no further detail employed on them . . . as an elected represen- about the mistakes being referred to. Aft er tative I have to make sure it [new development] observing this exchange several times, I began doesn’t turn into a sink estate with a negative prompting the speakers to elaborate on what future.” During a meeting about community was meant by this phrase and its relevance development, a housing manager used “avoid- to Chobham Manor’s emergent community. ing mistakes of the past” as shorthand to refer Speakers were oft en surprised when asked to to high-rise failure, but the phrase was intended clarify their intent, explaining that “avoiding the to convey a set of problems associated with es- mistakes of the past” referred to the social fail- tate maintenance and support for residents to ures associated with postwar tower block hous- manage debt and uphold their tenancies. Con- ing estates, specifi cally the lack of community versations with the urban design team from one and social alienation experienced by high-rise architecture practice unpacked “mistakes of the social housing tenants. Th ese exchanges rarely past” in relation to design that encourages or focused on a specifi c case—a named housing es- inhibits social interaction. In this sense, “avoid- tate or particular piece of research—but rather ing the mistakes of the past” was a phrase used spoke to what was understood to be taken-for- frequently by the team—in public and private granted knowledge that circulates in profes- meetings and passing conversation—to signal sional practice. both the risks of failure and the potential for A close examination of these responses action. showed that while the phrase referred to the In 2014, the LLDC published An Action same problem—a “failure to generate cohesive Plan for Building Community in a New Estate communities,” as one respondent described it, (Blume and Zander 2014)—compiling exam- or as another said, the “failure to create com- ples of successful approaches to building a sense munities that thrive socially”—its causes were of community from Europe and North Amer- understood to be varied. Statements that, on ica. Produced as a resource for the organiza- 76 | Saff ron Woodcraft tions developing Chobham Manor and other nities, a research collaboration with the gov- legacy neighborhoods, the report addressed ernment’s Homes and Communities Agency the question of how to avoid past mistakes and (HCA)3 to address the question of why some failures when building new neighborhoods, new communities succeed and others fail. asking: “Why do ‘good’ social relations emerge Leading the discussion were Lord Victor Abe- in some urban neighborhoods and not others?” dowale (a life peer with a long career in housing and “What enables a sense of community?” Th e and homelessness services), Sir Bob Kerslake LLDC’s report was one of several publications (then Chief Executive of the HCA), and Geoff and industry events that took place around this Mulgan (then Chief Executive of the Young time addressing the question of how to avoid Foundation). Attending the event were housing “past failures” and bring insights and lessons managers, policy makers, and planners from to bear on contemporary planning, design, and central and local government, public agen- placemaking practice (Berkeley Group 2012; cies, housing associations, and housing advo- JTP 2013; RSA 2014). Th ese events played an cacy groups. A working paper—“Never Again: important role in animating the “presence” and Avoiding the Mistakes of the Past” (Bacon threat of failed communities among London’s 2010)—set out the proposition for debate: at a networks of urban policy makers and built envi- time of acute housing need and newly imposed ronment practitioners. By convening interested austerity measures, how can the next gener- actors, sharing reports that were framed as new ation of large-scale house-building programs forms of knowledge, and encouraging dialogue succeed where previous experiments with mass about solutions, these events served to con- housing have failed? What can we learn from struct, as well as represent, the risks posed by past mistakes? And how can these lessons be “tower-block failure.” In this sense, the discus- applied to future policy and practice? sions about failure and prevention taking place Mulgan off ered the audience a new way of among the Chobham Manor team were part of thinking about failure. Th e problem, he argued, a wider discursive landscape, which sometimes is not solely architectural but also intellectual; intersected directly with the team’s work—if a there is a gap in the knowledge accessible to report was formally brought into discussion— built environment experts about how to design or otherwise provided a backdrop to place- places that can be socially, as well as econom- making practices, as research and insights from ically and environmentally, “successful.” Mul- recent debates were circulated. Like the cases gan argued professional knowledge about how just described, the events and debates happen- to plan, design, and construct high-quality and ing contemporaneously with the Olympic Park ecologically sustainable buildings is far in ad- regeneration also used the phrase “avoiding the vance of knowledge about the complex social mistakes of the past” in ambiguous and fl uid and behavioral interactions between dwellers ways. Th e two examples that follow examine and the places they inhabit—knowledge, he how diff erent actors invest opposing meanings argued, that is siloed in academic domains. As in the same claim to failure, and how this equiv- a consequence, too much attention is paid to ocality obscures radically diff erent propositions physical and economic infrastructure (trans- about how to mitigate or redress those risks. port, environmentally sustainable housing, local job creation), and too little aff orded to understanding how planning can support the social Making and remaking “failure” and cultural life of places. Th e high public costs of failure—in terms of both public spending and In January 2010, the Young Foundation, an in- life chances—could be avoided, he argued, by dependent research institute, hosted an event at establishing cross-sector partnerships to trans- the House of Lords to launch Future Commu- fer knowledge to new domains of practice. “Avoiding the mistakes of the past” | 77

Th e shorthand “avoiding the mistakes of “shorthand” for a set of values, knowledge, and the past” is also used by Nicholas Boys Smith, organizing principles within a particular group. founder of Create Streets, a research institute Th e instances described here illustrate how the that describes its purpose as “encouraging the phrase “avoiding the mistakes of the past” is a creation of more urban homes with terraced discursive shorthand used by practitioners and streets rather than complex multi-storey build- policy makers engaged in the production of ur- ings” (2013: 2). Mulgan and Boys Smith embody ban space in London. In a dialogic sense, the the poles of “failure” discourse. Mulgan, as for- aesthetic fi gure of the failed high-rise housing mer head of policy and director of strategy for estate has been reworked in a new political con- the New Labour leaders Tony Blair and Gordon text as the symbolic opposite of the sustainable Brown, is one of the architects of New Labour’s community, which provides a structure for the policies. Boys Smith, on the other hand, co- eff ective governance of bodies and places. created Create Streets with Policy Exchange, a Critics of postwar high-rise housing estates center-right institution described by the Tele- argue tower blocks are dehumanizing and dis- graph as “David Cameron’s favorite think tank” rupt the “natural” patterns of everyday movement (Helm and Hope 2008), which is publicly critical and social interaction that build the familiarity, of high-rise housing. Mulgan and Boys Smith trust, and cooperation between neighbors that deploy rhetorical strategies that make use of the is essential for a sense of community to emerge dominant claims associated with tower-block (see Campkin 2013 for discussion of literature failure to problematize urban development and by Coleman 1985; Newman 1973). Th is nar- to advocate specifi c solutions. One proposes rative is central to mainstream cultural and that policy makers and built environment pro- political representations of the postwar high- fessionals make better use of available evidence; rise tower block as a site of social dysfunction, the other advocates the demolition of high- in which architectural scale and form play a rise housing on the grounds that “multi-storey critical part in social alienation. Returning to housing is more risky and makes people sadder, the Guardian article discussed earlier, Jenkins badder and lonelier” (Morton and Boys Smith (2017) reiterates this claim by juxtaposing the 2013: 29). antisocial eff ects of tower block architecture Th eorists of discourse and linguistics observe with the pro-social spatial order of the neigh- that language is performative in the sense that borhood and, in so doing, implying there are words are oft en intended to do much more than both a “right” way for modern urban citizens to simply present a fact (Austin 1962, 1979; Fou- live alongside each other and “proper” ways to cault 1991). Making sense of discursive prac- organize urban space. Anthropological theories tices requires an understanding of where and of architecture challenge such claims to envi- how claims are situated in relation to existing ronmental determinism, arguing that people, knowledge, the contested terrain in which prob- buildings, and landscapes are mutually consti- lems are formulated, and the context in which tutive (Buchli 2013; Yaneva 2012), and empir- speech or text is communicated. Mikhail Bakh- ical accounts exploring belonging, sociality, tin (1992) argues discourse is always bracketed home, and self-making, heritage, and identity by what has come before: prior associations and in the kind of postwar high-rises discussed here the meanings of specifi c words and phrases are challenge dominant representations of alien- deployed anew in relation to other works and ation and dysfunction (Baxter 2017; Baxter voices, and can be recalled and reconfi gured and Brickell 2014; Melhuish 2005). However, in novel ways to construct new claims. Mean- it is the association between the postwar high- ing and intent can become ambiguous and dif- rise and “complete, cataclysmic” failure (Forty fi cult to locate, as words and phrases acquire 1995: 26) that dominates the public and politi- new, nonobvious signifi cances and operate as cal imagination. 78 | Saff ron Woodcraft

Conclusion: Community as governance MCI was informed by “area eff ects theory,” or the claim that day-to-day coexistence of people Community is considered by some scholars as from diff erent backgrounds can increase social an outdated and unproductive concept (Amit interaction, increasing the likelihood low-income 2012: 3), but it has undergone an ideological households have exposure to “more advantaged reinvention in British politics since the late and aspirational social networks” (Silverman 1990s—reaching its peak under New Labour et al. 2005: 9). Second is the “active citizenship (Raco 2007b)—to become one of the central or- agenda,” which sought to mobilize individuals ganizing principles of government policy. New through local volunteering and democratic par- Labour’s reimagining of community envisioned ticipation to build strong social networks at the the revitalization of social and civic life as part neighborhood level that would encourage com- of a wider urban renewal agenda targeting de- munity self-help (Seyfang 2003). clining cities. Th e Aylesbury Estate, a postwar New Labour’s sustainable communities pol- high-rise estate in South London, was the loca- icy agenda has received widespread criticism tion for Tony Blair’s inaugural speech as prime from scholars who have questioned the validity minister, in which he promised “no more no- of area eff ects theory (Lupton 2008), arguing hope areas” (BBC 1997) in New Labour’s Brit- the mixed communities principle is a form of ain and unveiled a vision for a new “bargain” state-led gentrifi cation that problematizes and between government and citizens based on an displaces low-income, primarily working-class ethic of mutual responsibility. households (Lees 2008; O’Hanlon and Hamnett Drawing heavily on a branch of Communi- 2009; Raco 2007a; Slater 2016a). However, these tarian philosophy (Prideaux 2002), New Labour policies established a normative model of active policies were infused with ideas about the sig- citizenship and mixed, self-organizing commu- nifi cance of civic values, moral responsibility, nities that successive governments have adopted and the “local” as the “key scale of meaningful and institutionalized in planning policy (DCLG human interaction” (Imrie and Raco 2003: 5). 2012; Mayor of London 2011; UK Parliament An expanded model of social capital was em- 2011). Analyzed on these terms, “community” braced: shift ing from Pierre Bourdieu’s (1986) as a political ideology and policy goal is not theorization of cultural capital as a means of merely a vehicle for revitalizing urban neigh- maintaining social status and structural in- borhoods or devolving power. “Community” is equalities, to framing social capital as a means a governance framework that defi nes the norma- to realize the potential of disadvantaged groups tive urban subject through the performance of by expanding their networks and connections specifi c citizenship practices—self-organization, to power (Baron 2004). Numerous policy pro- civic participation, volunteering and participa- grams were initiated to build local social capital tion in local decision-making—which are mea- as part of a wider vision of a new settlement be- sured, monitored, and used as a proxy for the tween citizens and the state that would transfer health of society (Woodcraft 2019). Furthermore, of responsibilities from government to commu- the extent of state-led privatization of housing, nities (Rodger 2000). Two initiatives have had infrastructure, and public space in Britain has far-reaching implications for urban neighbor- brought new non-state actors into processes of hoods. First is the Mixed Communities Initia- urban place governance in ways that are oft en tive (MCI)—launched to transform deprived, neither immediately obvious or transparent. mono-tenure, mainly inner-city housing es- Th e accounts in this article illustrate how tates by changing the housing stock (primarily “tower block failure” is discursively invoked through demolition and regeneration) to attract to carry forward, in both time and space, the new populations (Lupton and Fuller 2009). Th e threats of social alienation and exclusion that “Avoiding the mistakes of the past” | 79 undermine this normative ideal. In this sense, Acknowledgments the aesthetic fi gure of the failed high-rise can be understood as apotropaic: a ritual invocation Th is article is based on fi eldwork carried out made to ward off misfortune. However, warning between 2013 and 2016. I am grateful to the is only one half of the purpose it fulfi lls: an es- London Legacy Development Corporation and sential element of this entreaty is to legitimize the architects, planners, housing managers, and actions in the present that will mitigate future community development practitioners working failures. Th e accounts discussed here invari- on Chobham Manor who generously allowed me ably followed this pattern: invocations of “past to participate in, and document, their practices. mistakes” to be avoided were juxtaposed with An earlier version of this article was presented interventions, either proposed or in operation, at the 2018 meetings of the Association of Social to minimize risks or amplify community-build- Anthropologists and the American Anthropo- ing potentials. Th ese preventative or productive logical Association. Th anks to the other panel- interventions were designed, in the case of the ists—the authors in this theme section, Casper former, to minimize the possibility of friction be- Laing Ebbensgaard, Michal Murawski, and Asa tween residents that could undermine an emer- Roast—for their contributions to this emerging gent sense of community: for example, attention debate, and special thanks to the discussants, to the design and governance of communal and Gillian Evans and David Jeevendrampillai; to semipublic spaces (bike stores, rubbish bins, bal- the anonymous reviewers whose feedback was conies) that if left unchecked cause complaints so valuable; and to Victor Buchli for his contri- and irritation, and indicate the neighborhood butions as this work developed. is not cared for; and, in the case of the latter, attention to social practices that build the conditions required for normative communities to Saff ron Woodcraft is Senior Research Fellow in fl ourish—a community garden, time banking, the Institute for Global Prosperity at University small grants for local projects, and plans for a College London. Her research focuses on the resident-led neighborhood association. Th ese material culture of community: examining how interventions were framed as preemptive or architecture, planning technologies, and policy precautionary—speculative investments made are implicated in the making of urban citizens in the present to prevent future harms and, spe- and socialities at moments of spatial transfor- cifi cally, to avert the high social costs and asso- mation. She leads a transdisciplinary research ciated fi nancial implications of failing to create program in East London exploring local un- and sustain normative subjects and governable derstandings of prosperity and change in the places. In this sense, “tower block failure” is en- context of London’s Olympic Legacy transfor- tangled with an economy of risk management mation. She holds a PhD in anthropology from that implicates non-state actors in state of gover- University College London. nance in ways that far exceed neoliberal models Email: saff ron.woodcraft @ucl.ac.uk of privatized public service delivery. Attention to the terms on which failure and success are constructed in relation to a new, model neighbor- Notes hood in Olympic Park illuminate how the failed high-rise as an aesthetic fi gure is reconfi gured 1. Aff ordable housing is defi ned in housing policy and implicated in political and ethical framings for London as housing to rent or to purchase of citizenship and community, which refract through shared ownership schemes, which is wider questions about the nonobvious forms of provided to eligible households whose needs are power at work in the neoliberal city. not met by the market (Mayor of London 2016). 80 | Saff ron Woodcraft

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