This month, David Cameron has acted on a significant injustice. The country’s worst post-war tower blocks, built quickly in response to high demand for social housing in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s, will be demolished and replaced with more attractive low rise homes.
Some tower blocks are praised for their brutalist, modern style, but in reality, most are hated by the general population and particularly by those who live there. In recent public opinion polls, the reluctance to live in a tower block has been almost consistently unanimous. There’s nothing subjective about it; these buildings are just plain ugly. And ugly surroundings erode aspiration, health and community; they trap people in a cycle of ever decreasing social mobility, and they cultivate crime. They are poor houses to house the poor, which is simply an assault on social justice.
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