Introduction

This chapter describes the size and nature of estate populations over estate lifetimes, and how they compared to the national population and the populations of estates’ local authorities. Literature on neighbourhoods and social housing estates argues that resident characteristics are closely linked to neighbourhood or estate social status or popularity (Chapter 3), and can be seen as an indicator of, a cause of, and a result of other successes and failures. We also need to understand resident numbers and characteristics to assess the impact estates had on housing need and who was affected by the housing quality, the safety and order and other dimensions they provided. To describe residents’ characteristics, the chapter uses qualitative evidence and indirect evidence from rent levels and allocation policies for the early years of estate lifetimes. It then uses census data for the areas most closely matching the estate boundaries for the period 1981–2011.

The number of residents

The sheer number of people living in the estates is a measure of their contribution to meeting local and national housing need in quantitative terms. The number of residents also affects the extent and way in which public areas and shared facilities in estates may be used, the wear and tear on individual homes, and the social environment. The 20 estates had a total of about 18,000 homes at their peak (Chapter 1). However, the total number of residents over estate lifetimes, and even at any one time, can only be estimated. Social landlords paid close attention to the size and composition of households when making allocations, but generally did not keep records of the number of people living in their homes over time, taking into account births, deaths and moves.

I used electoral registers to identify all adult residents registered as electors in one street of 134 homes at E14 (1926/900/h/NE) at tenyear intervals from 1931 to 1991. A total of 1,238 named individual adults were living in the street at the seven time points. This figure misses out unregistered adult residents and those who moved in and out of the street between the time points, and given the typical ratio of children to adults, child residents might have added half as much again to the total population of the street.