The new face of large-scale housing estates
During the post-World War II era a number of large-scale housing estates were built to meet the housing needs in many European cities. Their prospects though for the near future are very dim since the prognostics for their sustainability are low. They are densely populated and accommodate low-income households, unemployed people and ethnic minorities. Hence, incidents of crime and social exclusion issues are on the rise and the development of good practices for restructuring these estates is essential. RESTATE's aim was to study estates' social and economic changes towards developing a repository of successful policies. The project involved the evaluation of the estates' potential for cross-national transfer of knowledge and experience, and for cooperation in strategic planning and estate management. Its ultimate aim was to produce a handbook with optimistic scenarios and evidence-based practices. A multi-disciplinary comparative approach was followed as a coordinated action of researchers, stakeholders and end-users (policy-makers, politicians and housing managers). Case studies were produced for 29 estates in 10 European countries. Specifically, in the Havanna estate in Budapest, Hungary, successful and unsuccessful policies were assessed by using existing and new information. The latter was derived by focus group interviews with policy-makers and people leading the policies' implementation. The results showed that proven success/failure factors were hard to identify due to the novelty of refurbishment process and the limited number of policies. However, it was observed that satisfying public demand is an asset towards success. Characteristic is the case of security risk management in public spaces where a closed-circuit television (CCTV) system was installed in response to the public request. Local authorities (e.g. deputy mayor) or property managers could also play pivotal roles in the restructuring process - the driving force for the buildings' refurbishment. The RESTATE workframe could be exploited as a prototype for other housing estates.
