More on 'Sink Estates'

The below was also posted earlier as a response to the suggestion that we should condemn everything that is creating "this situation", and that having done that we should have the balls to do something about it, rather than brush it under the carpet.


Right. But who here is brushing it under the carpet, and what exactly are we supposed to do as individuals. Condemenation on a talkboard is just so much hot air.

I have lots of ideas that I think might be workable and might make a difference, having seen some of them work in other situations. As a child I realised that if you put all the 'bad people' in one place it was a recipe for disaster and that you would create estates that no one wanted to live on, in order to keep the 'bad people' away from everyone else. I knew that if you wanted to make society work, you had to stop creating ghettos, you had to try and make sure that 'good' and 'bad' lived cheek by jowl, because it was far more likely that 'bad' people living in a 'good' environment would see the benefits and feel the motivation to emulate the good rather than the bad.

It's not so easy these days. Social housing is totally fucked, thanks to decades of appalling policy decisions, so estates generally become holding areas for those in need, and some of those in need are less 'socially acceptable' than others.

Things that have worked.

A 'sink estate' in the North-East was so bad that everyone who could move out did. As fewer people were left, the local authority moved them out, completely did the estate up and then offered housing to people from outside the area who didn't know of its reputation and saw it for what it could be - a decent environment in which to live and make a go of it. Pretty drastic, but it shows that an improved environment and a different perspective can work.

Education - giving people the tools and the motivation to make the most of themselves, understanding that this should not all be measured 'academically' and therefore looking to fund apprenticeships again, giving everyone the chance to learn a trade if they want to and are able to. Education is investment in the future, spend more on that than fucked up conflicts overseas.

Investment - get estate dwellers involved in doing up their estates, get them involved in setting up tenants associations that are involved in the running of the estate and have a vested interest in making the place the best it possibly can be.

Policing - invest in community policing if needs be, but make their presence felt so that everyone feels safe.

Adult education and literacy - channel this. TV adverts are all very well and good, but bring it to the places where it is most needed.

Investment in social housing and a change in the law regarding private tenants - Tenants are treated like scum by the law. Constantly having to sign tenancy agreements, never knowing when they will have to move to the next flat with all the expense that involves. Social housing was not just a net to catch those in need, but ensured that just about everyone could look forward to decent housing unless and until they decided to buy for themselves. We'll never get back to that but there needs to be a greater understanding that we need more of it.

And finally an understanding that this will all take time, that there is no quick fix and that there will always be a minority of people who don't give a fuck. For a change focus on the people who do and stop pretending that everyone is - as I said before - the lowest common denominator by virtue of their address.

As a postscript, the fact that this debate is taking place in a thread about Shannon Matthews is ... interesting isn't really the word, but it will have to do. Just as everyone who lives on a 'sink estate' isn't the scum of the earth, so most mothers with an abundance of children, possibly (shock horror) by different fathers, would not dream of behaving in the way that Ms Matthews allegedly did. Her geographical location does not make her a representative of a type of mother in any way, shape or form.