Introduction

Census data cannot describe all the characteristics of the many thousands of people who have lived in the estates over their lifetimes, and the social environment they created. This chapter uses interviews and resident webposts to provide a broader account. As in the chapter on safety and order, this one has a special focus on children's perspectives.

The estates had distinctive communities and distinctive social environments. These created some special advantages, which should be recognised as among the successes of the estates, and which other neighbourhoods and communities might want to emulate. However, there were also distinctive disadvantages, which should be counted among estates’ problems and which will have contributed to their relative unpopularity.

Networks of families and friends

In at least some of the estates, relatively low demand for homes on them meant high proportions of new residents were relations and friends of existing residents. Over time this could lead to the development of communities that were distinctive from those of other neighbourhoods not only in terms of socioeconomic statistics but also because of the extent of social relationships across estates, or because of the social norms established there.

The local manager at E14 (1926/900/h/NE) recorded that 98 households moved out of homes in the estate in a six-month period in 1982, but almost half moved into other homes in the estate. In the late 1980s, the local managers said that only people with overriding social reasons for being at E14 would accept its homes, given the fact that many were undecorated or vandalised. At the same date, the local manager at E2 (1937/300/h/NW) said it, “has always had a close community due to it being historically stigmatised … resulting in new lets frequently being to family and friends of existing residents, over 50 years many family/friend networks have developed”. In 2004, a regeneration organisation chief exec at E8 (1936/1,000/h/Mid) said, “the estate feels different [to others]. It's very hard to put a finger on it. There are so many extended families, everyone's related.”