Turning houses into homes: Living through urban regeneration in East Manchester

Abstract

Repeated studies of urban regeneration have focused on the displacement of working class residents, but those who remain living in sites of urban change have received less attention. To attend to this gap, this paper focuses on the lives of long-standing residents in East Manchester, a site of urban regeneration, and examines their views of urban change. Ethnographic research reveals how the demolition and rebuilding of new houses has resulted in a deep sense of uncertainty. Drawing on anthropological theories of materiality, the analysis makes an original contribution to debates about urban regeneration, showing how social and material relations have been reconfigured and arguing that this in turn has created new meanings about the home.

Snakes and ladders: legal coercion, housing precarity, and home‐making aspirations in southern England

“…This in turn generated the sense of belonging necessary to ‘make houses into homes’ (Lewis : 1335). Lewis shows that instability, if commonplace, can be ‘central to rather than distinct from notions of home’ (: 1335). Thus, ‘home’ can entail a connection to place rife with the dynamics of major political and economic upheaval (Jansen ).…”

“…It has shown that ‘interlinked shifts’ in capital accumulation and state policy together generate insecurity in housing tenure (Wilde in press). These shifts include: liberal policies that favour the interests of landlords and lenders, including by removing rent controls and barriers to eviction (Gutierrez‐Garza in press; Wilde in press); austerity; the securitization of mortgages (Sabaté ) and capital's increased reliance on financial extraction generally (Suarez ); models for economic growth reliant on property prices (Dorling ); subsidies for home‐ownership (Palomera ); de‐industrialization causing wage stagnation and volatility (Desmond ); and urban redevelopment and compulsory purchase orders (Ho ; Lewis ). I build on this research by arguing that liberalization is a process whereby the discretion to adjudicate on legally enforceable intrusions into the home is distributed among state and market agencies such as landlords, lenders, and bailiffs (also known as ‘enforcement agents’).…”

“…I draw inspiration from two studies that highlight a complex interplay between housing precarity and people's affective attachments to their homes. Studying urban regeneration in East Manchester, Lewis () argues that amid demolition, home‐building, and the displacement of many residents, the instability of the physical environment was the basis on which remaining residents invested financial and emotional resources into local social relations. This in turn generated the sense of belonging necessary to ‘make houses into homes’ (Lewis : 1335).…”

“…Studying urban regeneration in East Manchester, Lewis () argues that amid demolition, home‐building, and the displacement of many residents, the instability of the physical environment was the basis on which remaining residents invested financial and emotional resources into local social relations. This in turn generated the sense of belonging necessary to ‘make houses into homes’ (Lewis : 1335). Lewis shows that instability, if commonplace, can be ‘central to rather than distinct from notions of home’ (: 1335).…”

“…Social housing tenants have better protections. Yet even before the resurgence of private renting, large‐scale regeneration of council estates since the 1980s displaced many families (Lees ; Lewis , ), constituting a form of housing precarity in its own right. In the rest of this article, I examine how, for a couple I befriended in Woldham, to whom I give the names Kerry and Daniel, the ongoing prospect of their tenancy being terminated threatened to interrupt the multiple futures they pursued through their home.…”