1. Introduction: A Living Tapestry?.- 2. Setting the Scene.- 3. Mixed Occupancy – Mixed Occupations?.- 4. Custodians of (Dis)order: The Pusher, the Publican and the Matriarch.- 5. Rubbing Along: Proximity and Understandings of Difference.- 6. Habitable Space? The Price of Gentrification.- 7. Mater out of Place? Women, Mobility, Livelihood and Power.- 8. Conclusion: The Tapestry Unpicked?.

This book recounts an ethnographic study of a mixed-occupancy housing estate near the centre of London, refocusing the scholarly conversation around social housing in the U.K. after the 1980 Housing Act. Rather than examining the long-term consequences of ‘Right to Buy,’ such as shortages in local authority stock and neighbourhood gentrification, James Rosbrook-Thompson and Gary Armstrong instead investigate the changes wrought on the social fabric of the individual estate. Drawing on four years of ethnographic fieldwork, the authors explore the estate’s social mix and, more specifically, the consequences of owner-occupiers, council tenants and private renters sharing a cramped inner-city neighbourhood. Mixed-Occupancy Housing in London: A Living Tapestry humanizes the academic conversations around class, race, and gender in social housing through the occupants’ tales of getting by, getting along and getting out. 

Offers an inside look at a mixed-occupancy housing estate which truly shows a vivid example of dystopia One of the first works to detail the social and culture life of a UK housing estate through ethnographic research Touches on key topics in academic conversation such as urban diversity and immigration