The BBC television programme on Arnold Circus http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01kvkw6/ gave an excellent overview of how London County Council town planning addressed social concerns in an area formerly considered "semi-criminal" and how council-house sales are now introducing privileged residents to a formerly poor area.
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More info on the Boundary Estate including Arnold Circus is available from the Open University [here]
Since then the creeping gentrification of Shoreditch, combined with the slow drip of tenants buying flats under the Tory "Right to Buy" and then renting them out, or selling for up to a quarter of a million pounds, has meant that a new class of elite residents of the Grade 2-listed blocks (The Boundary Estate us within walking distance of the City of London financial district and a number of cultural and ICT enterprises are also nearby).
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More info on the Boundary Estate including Arnold Circus is available from the Open University [here]
It was formerly a notorious slum known as the Old Nichol Rookery. Wikipedia have an excellent summary of its history. Several members of the local authority (the Bethnal Green Vestry Sanitary Committee) were landlords or agents benefiting from the slum
The slums were cleared and new designed flats put up by the London County Council, a new model local authority. However, the original inhabitants couldn't afford the new rents and a lot of flats were taken up by "respectable" immigrant Jewish Tailors. By the 1970s the flats were run down and there was a low degree of occupancy. Inherited by the newer "Greater London Council" organised squatting introduced Bengali families from nearby Brick Lane in the 1970s. When the GLC was abolished they were transferred to the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. They wanted to transfer the housing stock to an Arms Length Management Organisation which was rejected by local residents in 2006 after a campaign by the National Housing Federation . It may be significant that Respect MP George Galloway had recently replaced New Labour's Oona King for Bethnal Green and Bow. Oona campaigned strongly for the ALMO "yes" vote. Click Here for a debate between the two.Since then the creeping gentrification of Shoreditch, combined with the slow drip of tenants buying flats under the Tory "Right to Buy" and then renting them out, or selling for up to a quarter of a million pounds, has meant that a new class of elite residents of the Grade 2-listed blocks (The Boundary Estate us within walking distance of the City of London financial district and a number of cultural and ICT enterprises are also nearby).
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