I had a dread of communal living when I left home, aged 18, but I came round to it eventually and now think it is a good experience for students to have – whether they like it or not.
Though I do not know much about migrant families, my impression is that most of the children adapt quickly and well, so well that despite contrary appearances they appear indistinguishable from the children of ‘natives’. But some families keep their children separate and do not let the girls learn English for fear of cultural assimilation. After the 2005 7/7 London bombs the journalists set out to discover WHY? They did a great job and found them to have come from migrant-dominated communities in the north of England which were largely cut off from the ‘native’ population. I remember an interview with with a French sociologist who said the reason for the separation was that the men wanted to maintain control of the women. I do not know if this was true – but it sounded plausible.

Do you think living in boarding or billeting type arrangements is better for students? Perhaps this could be something that was studied by survey with the optimum outcome being the optimum study and campus experience? Or do you think there is a ‘good’ to be derived from every student having a grumpy landlady to contend with?

It would seem that different people have different disabilities which gives them need/support profiles. Perhaps they could be arranged into groups according to high, medium and low levels of support needed? Some disabilities are permanent and stable while others are variable over time. So the same person might need different levels of support over a lifetime?

Do you find that in migrant communities the children have a different relationship to learning english and being bi-lingual or multi-lingual and that they may seek work opportunities beyond their own linguistic community?

Yes, it may even be good for students to slum it. I remember living in rented room with a grumpy landlady and thinking how much better life would be if I could have a lock-up garage to live in.
Re disabled people, yes of course they should be looked after to every degree that is necessary. But I think they should also wish to do what they can for themselves – if they can.
Special accommodation for single mums is a good idea, the risk being that if it is too lavish they become attracted to this provision as a ‘career choice’. If work is not much fun and boyfriends are a pain, then why not have a few kids and let the state provide housing, education, health-care etc etc?
We have many migrants in London and they do not seem to suffer from language problems: they just find places to work where the language of their country is the most spoken tongue.

During the Thatcher years many students were offered the opportunity to purchase housing – and many dropped out of their studies to do so because the opportunity was too good to pass up. Student housing tends to be different in nature to social housing, even where there is a need for more affordable accommodation. Cost is usually the only factor affecting them.

Presumably there is also a disability group – and this group is probably as varied as the community in terms of its profile. The objective of the group is most likely to be to live as independently as possible but yet be as close to family and medical supports as possible. It is likely that this group is across the socio-economic spectrum and has varied employment prospects.

Single parent families. Most likely female led and perhaps with limited employment prospects – partly because of family responsibilities – and partly because gender distinctions and expectations of a male ‘breadwinner’ still exist. It is likely that this group needs accommodation suited to families and with access to childcare to reduce the disadvantage of being a single parent.

Migrant groups transitioning to a new country. The issue for these groups is more likely to be language and education barriers to employment opportunities which take a while to overcome. They are more likely to be two parent families and have the same need for child friendly accommodation styles. Childcare may or may not be an issue. Language and training supports are the most likely needs for this group.

There may also be other groups so it would be worth surveying the social housing population to get a full appreciation of demographics and needs.

Apart from the difficulties experienced by the tenant groups there is an issue with the owner group allocating adequate resources to the maintenance and management of the housing stock. If there is a policy not to fund to maintain stock – it would be better to roll the housing stock over every five years from new onto the private market. If carefully thought out there should be no problem with finding appropriate self-management structures of each of the groups.

The differences between social housing and that of higher income groups are very important. Some of the points I wonder about are:
– how large is the social group which is unable to manage good roofs of its head? This group should be given managed housing – because they are human and because wealthy societies can afford the provision. I suspect the group is not very large. In fact couldn’t there be something akin to ‘working your way through college’? ie creating paid jobs in managing the property?
– for the larger group, which could manage property but which lacks the resources, wouldn’t it be better to provide the resources than to provide the management? The danger here is that unscrupulous private landlords profit from the resources so allocated. This is where the opportunity for not-for-profit housing providers comes in (‘housing associations’ in the UK). I think the Gorbals could have been managed in this way but agree that it might have been better to sell the tenements to the middle classes and use the money to fund non-profit housing bodies.

A good architect, interior designer and landscape architect could have turned them into very desirable places to live close to the river and Glasgow gardens not the mention the few small squares and what looks like a forest.

As a social housing solution, however, the tenements would probably still leave much to be desired.

So, the crux of the question is what is the essential difference between the needs of social housing residents and the needs of middle class residents?

The first assumption that is most probably true is that the middle class occupants would own the property and would have the funds to maintain it and that the social housing occupants would have neither ownership of nor funds to maintain the property.

The second assumption that is most probably true is that the middle class occupants would have some form of body corporate to make decisions about the common elements of the building and grounds and would contribute to a common pool of funds to achieve these ends and that the social housing occupants would have neither a voice in common decision making nor the funds to contribtute to a common pool.

If this is so, and if it has consequences for the livability of the residences, then a different arrangement to accommodate this aspect of the property’s management would need to occur.

The famous Gorbals tenements had small yards at the rear but salubrious is not an adjective one would apply to them:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HzWDZQwPgjQ/T9TQVPgr-7I/AAAAAAAAFbc/xlzIcD8Jwe0/s1600/map_glasgow_south.jpg
http://discuss.glasgowguide.co.uk/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=1153
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_B8H7iLOlVww/S_SkMPYLJfI/AAAAAAAAB7A/TYQVkeybtV0/s400/image_3_slum_housing_at_crown_street_the_gorbals_december_1946.jpg
The designers possibly intended them for hanging washing
http://www.shorpy.com/files/images/4a18586u2.jpg
Also in New York – just think what a great place it would be if they turned the roofs into roof gardens:
http://freeassociationdesign.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/new-york-city.jpg

The blame which attaches to the designers of Pruitt-Igoe is mainly that of accessories to the crime. I have published a related video at http://www.gardenvisit.com/blog/2014/05/08/modernism-postmodernism-post-postmodernism-and-design/
But I am happy to side with Charles Jencks in seeing Pruitt-Igoe as a failure of modernism as a broadly interpreted cultural movement embracing politics, philosophy and economics – as well as design.

Tom Wolfe suggests the death knell for the estate came from the residents themselves as they chanted ‘blow it up!’

It is certainly important for any appraisal of modernism for a retrospective case study of Pruitt Igoe to be undertaken.