A social invention that failed

Dr Alice Coleman

Original inventions need a free-ranging mind unhampered by doubts and self-criticism. but once an invention has been formulated, evaluation becomes essential. A new idea is not necessarily a good idea. It may bring great benefits, or have little effect, or create a social disaster, so an assessment is vital for deciding whether to proceed, amend or discard.

'Families have been forced to share corridors, staircases, lifts, lobbies and grounds'

One of the most widely applied social inventions of the last 50 years was never treated in this way, and as a result has brought about widespread social breakdown. It is the replanning of the residential environment to replace the traditional street of houses-with-gardens by estates of flats where families have been forced to share corridors, staircases, lifts, lobbies and grounds, in the belief that this layout would create instant communities. In practice, it created just the reverse - problem estates - but the government department which decreed it found the perfect excuse for escaping blame. They claimed that it was fatuous and reductionist to suggest a causal connection between design and social breakdown, and then proceeded to build more problem estates that have proved to be even worse.

The Land Use Research Unit at King's College, London, has tried to investigate housing design with an open mind. We surveyed over 4,000 houses built over the last hundred years and over 4,000 blocks of flats, noting a variety of design elements and also the distribution of vandal damage, and the presence in and around the entrances of litter, graffiti, urine and faeces. Later we were able to add data on children in care, juvenile arrests, burglary, robbery, theft, criminal damage, fires, bodily harm, sexual assaults, and two types of vehicle crime, with preliminary evidence for alcoholism, drug addiction and personality disorders.

We recognised that people are all different, and that any given design would not affect everyone equally, but were alert to the possibility that some features might affect fewer people than others. If this were systematically true, there might be a case for modifying the worst designs in the hope of alleviating the associated social breakdown.

'All blocks with a zero disadvantagement score were totally free from crime during the study year'

There proved to be clear trends relating all our test measures (litter etc) to 12 design variables in houses and 16 in blocks of flats. For each design there is a threshold value, below which there is less than average social breakdown. By counting the number of designs which breach their threshold value in each house or block, we can rate each one with a disadvantagement score, with zero as the optimum. All the zero-scoring blocks were totally free from crime during the study year, whereas those with scores of at least 13 averaged one crime per five dwellings.

We suggest, therefore, that design is a major factor in many aspects of social breakdown. This cannot be disproved by calling it reductionist. It needs to be tested in practice by changing the designs in a Design Improvement (DI) scheme, to see whether benefits actually ensue.

Statistically, the worst design for spreading crime to the maximum number of blocks is the presence of overhead walkways between buildings. Where these bridges have been removed, there has been a noticeable drop in crime, nocturnal disturbances and pollution by excrement. Designs which maximise the volume of crime are grounds shared among many blocks and multiple gates or gaps leading into the estate from the surrounding roads. These features can be changed by enclosing each block inside its own wall, with only one gateway, to prevent outsiders from taking shortcuts across its territory. This course of action has reduced the fear of crime and made it possible to eliminate litter and graffiti completely. Subdividing large blocks into smaller self-contained sections reduces the cost of maintenance and vandal-damage repairs, while giving traditional front gardens to ground-floor flats helps children to become polite and better integrated into the community.

'It has resulted in a complete cessation of crime. Tenants say they have thrown away their sleeping pills, and no longer need the psychiatrist'

The best DI scheme to date has simultaneously improved five deleterious designs. It has resulted in a complete cessation of litter, graffiti, excrement, vandalism and crime for six years to date, and the tenants say they have thrown away their sleeping pills, and no longer need the psychiatrist. This evidence is particularly valuable because a similar estate nearby has been reconditioned at a similar cost, but has had no design changes, and continues to be beset by all the old social ills from litter to one crime per dwelling per year.

What we need most in this field is the social re-invention of housing freedom. It is no accident that problems seem fewest in 1930s dwellings, as these were the most advanced forms to evolve by natural selection. Residents were free to select good innovations and reject bad ones, and this process gave each household clear control over its own separate territory, with features which can now be recognised as effective aids to child rearing and community development. If we had not been denied a further half-century of housing evolution since 1939, there might well have been further stabilising benefits, instead of the present retrogade situation due to doctrinaire ideology.

'1930s dwellings, the most advanced forms to evolve by natural selection, gave each household clear control over its own separate territory'

Social inventions are needed, but let us not assume that they are all automatically good. Modern Movement housing is one that has been disastrous.

Dr Alice Coleman, of the Department of Geography, King's College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS (tel 071 836 5454). Dr Coleman's book, 'Utopia on Trial - Vision and Reality in Planned Housing', is published by Hilary Shipman at L7-95. Mrs Thatcher when in power took note of Coleman's housing research and seven estates are now undergoing systematic trials.

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