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Title Tower Blocks Objective To learn why tower blocks were built in inner city areas and whether they have been a successful form of redevelopment. Key Words Comprehensive Redevelopment Urban Renewal. Why were tower blocks built?.
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Title Tower Blocks Objective To learn why tower blocks were built in inner city areas and whether they have been a successful form of redevelopment. Key Words Comprehensive Redevelopment Urban Renewal
Why were tower blocks built? Tower blocks were built in the 1960’s and 70’s to help ease the problems of overcrowding within inner city areas.
Large areas of terraced housing was raised to the ground and replaced by Tower Blocks. This process was known as Comprehensive Redevelopment – areas of low quality buildings were supposedly replaced by newer and higher quality buildings
Tower blocks were built close to the CBD – they were cheap to build and provided affordable public sector housing for low income earners. Building upwards instead of outwards also saved on the amount of expensive land that was utilised.
The first postwar estates were a massive advance on the housing conditions for the majority of working class people. They had separate bathrooms, a 1951 census found 5 million people across the country were still dependent on public washrooms for baths. Many of the new estates and tower blocks had central heating something unheard of until then. They were spacious, in fact 37 percent more spacious than the pre-war low cost housing standards.
Unattractive and soulless buildings Inadequate for families Problems with Tower Blocks Feeling of isolation Lack of open space Cheap construction – building deterioration. Noise Pollution Vandalism & Neglect
By the mid 1990’s, many of the old tower blocks were being demolished and the existing residents re-housed.
Areas where tower blocks once stood have undergone a form of Urban Renewal. In some cases, being replaced by buildings such as these flats in Glasgow.
There are over 4,000 tower blocks, homes for perhaps 800,000 people. The Government forecasts that 4.4 million new households may form in England by 2016, and there is severe pressure resisting further building on green-field sites. Tower blocks may form a sustainable way of living.
