This chapter is concerned with the construction and representation of council estates as ‘problem places’. Council estates have long been represented as posing a ‘problem’, to the local state, for agencies engaged in the delivery of criminal justice, and for a diverse range of organisations involved in the management of welfare and welfare- ‘dependent’ populations. In this chapter it is argued that these estates play a symbolically and ideologically important role as a ‘signifier’, a marker of social problems and spatialised ‘dysfunctionality’. In New Labour's much-heralded ‘urban renaissance’ the council estate is often counterposed against the vision of a revitalised urban citizenship, in which ‘responsible’ and ‘orderly’ communities are involved in the management of their neighbourhoods.

Before we proceed, however, some ‘disclaimers’ are perhaps required. The city has long been portrayed as a place of ‘social disorder’ and ‘social disorganisation’, perhaps exemplified by the work of the Chicago School of Sociology. Thus, there is no argument here that it is only ever the council estate that has been portrayed as a ‘problem’ locale. Nor is it claimed that the council estate is the only urban locale that figures in contemporary representations of urban ‘disorder’ and decay, with the ‘inner city’ continuing to occupy a similar role in England, if much less so in Scotland. It is also acknowledged that ‘the council estate’ as a label encompasses a significant range of area ‘types’ and includes contrasting forms of housing development, with many of those deemed to be most problematic frequently located on the urban periphery (Hetherington, 2005). In those estates considered more attractive, there has been a marked increase in home ownership through Right to Buy since the early 1980s, together with small-scale transfers of stock to other social landlords.