Gentrification expert discusses 'managed decline' of estates for BBC
The process of regenerating inner city areas has negative impact on existing communities.
A University expert in urban gentrification has taken part in a BBC InsideOut London documentary into the impact on residents of councils regenerating their estates.
In the programme, which explores the process of gentrification by local councils on the communities living in inner city areas, Professor Loretta Lees from our School of Geography, Geology and the Environment discusses how estates earmarked for regeneration are often subjected to a process of managed decline. Beverley Robinson and Jerry Flynn, who took part in the recent Aylesbury public inquiry with Professor Lees, also provide their views as local residents.
Watch their interviews on BBC InsideOut London:
Often stigmatised as sites of concentrated social dysfunction, council estates are also coveted for their untapped redevelopment potential. Urban scholars like Professor Lees have challenged the idea of estate renewal as “gentrification by stealth”, intended to privatise social housing and socially cleanse the inner city of low-income communities.