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How 'placemaking' is tearing apart social housing communities | Nye Jones

It’s gentrification by any other name, helping councils to force out tenants and decimate public housing

Joyce (not her real name) was in east London long before the Cereal Killer cafe, moving from East Ham to the Carpenters estate in Newham months before her son was born in 1972. She doesn’t describe a life of luxury: “We had young children, we had three bedrooms, [but] it was warm.” Nor was the community on the estate devoid of problems, but she made friends among her neighbours and was able to put down roots with the kind of security that is becoming increasingly rare.

She says her flat was in “perfect condition” apart from some ceiling damp, the result of a forgetful neighbour with a quick-running bath. So when she received a letter from Newham council in 2010 advising that the whole estate was going to be decanted for “refurbishment”, it came as a surprise.

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from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2TdRnSu

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