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You are here: Home / Other RW Issues / Public Housing / Redevelopment / Social Mix - Will it solve the problems? / 'Mixed' estates found to break rather than make communities

'Mixed' estates found to break rather than make communities

Ms Kenworthy's study - along with extensive research by Western Sydney academic Gabrielle Gwyther, published in the recent edition of the journal Urban Policy and Research - challenges 30 years of conventional wisdom. Over the past 10 to 15 years, NSW government policy has been to break up the estates writes Andrew West in the Sydney Morning Herald of 11 April 2011.
 
Lauren Kenworthy 27 yrs of age outside the house at Minto where she lived from 1989-2010.

Lauren Kenworthy outside her old house in Minto. Photo: Brendan Esposito

LAUREN KENWORTHY, raised on a public housing estate in south-west Sydney, never believed she was growing up in a ghetto.

''Quite the opposite,'' she insisted. ''My childhood in Minto was perfectly normal. I did not feel any different. I did not realise until later in life that my area was perceived as having a concentration of low-income households.''

Ms Kenworthy, a 27-year-old PhD student at the University of Western Sydney, graduated recently with a first-class honours degree for her study of life on an outer-suburban public housing estate. Her thesis focused on the experiences of 10 fellow residents of the Minto estate, whose families were relocated to ''mixed communities''.

Since the families were dispersed, social contact has broken down. ''When I was growing up, it was, at most, a 15-minute walk across the estate to maintain friendships,'' she said.

Now it is a logistical ordeal, given most do not have cars, and Facebook and texting are a poor substitute. ''There was no reason, except for the maintenance of the housing, for the estate to be broken up and redeveloped.''

Ms Kenworthy's study - along with extensive research by Western Sydney academic Gabrielle Gwyther, published in the recent edition of the journal Urban Policy and Research - challenges 30 years of conventional wisdom. Over the past 10 to 15 years, NSW government policy has been to break up the estates.

The One Minto estate, when complete, will contain 800 new private homes and 230 new public housing units. In nearby Bonnyrigg, the new development will be 70 per cent private and 30 per cent public. It is a big change from the old model, where, for example, 88 per cent of homes in Claymore and 86 per cent in Airds were public housing.

Dr Gwyther, who conducted 22 in-depth case studies with public housing residents, concludes that relocating residents to mixed communities ''may in fact lead to their increased social isolation and, in turn, social exclusion - the very situation policies of 'social mix' are intended to relieve''.

She bases her findings on several factors. Many estate residents rely on face-to-face connection, rather than technology, for their community life and support. They often have limited access to the internet, do not have cars and can only afford to use their mobile phones for texting rather than calling. ''Although low cost, these mobile [phone] plans had a constraining effect on the size and composition of personal communities,'' she writes.

Dr Gwyther also observed that by breaking up estates, the community services dealing with education, unemployment, housing, health and family support were generally dispersed. For most residents, their friendship group numbered no more than 21, and an average of just 10 people. For some, the welfare workers were the majority of their social group.

Some older women, who had been community elders and leaders when they lived on the estates, felt a loss of purpose in their new, socio-economically mixed neighbourhoods. Another woman ''had relocated from a supportive but stigmatised community to a mixed tenure suburb yet had not experienced diversification of her social network''.

Dr Gwyther said she was not opposed to mixed income communities, but warned that in south-western Sydney many residents had been moved to estates that lacked good transport and could not afford the technology that allowed middle income Australians to maintain social relationships beyond their neighbourhood.

Source: www.smh.com.au/nsw/mixed-estates-found-to-break-rather-than-make-communities-20110410-1d9d7.html