Delivering Mixed Communities: The Relationship between Housing Tenure Mix and Social Mix in England's Neighbourhoods

For a number of years, housing and regeneration policy in Britain has focused on creating social mix through changing housing tenure mix, particularly in deprived social housing areas. Policies are founded on the perception that segregation of rich and poor is increasing, and this reinforces disadvantage. Little work has examined the degree of correspondence between social and tenure mix. We examine the relationship between these variables in English neighbourhoods, using occupational mix to measure social mix. We examine the regional differences in this relationship. We show neighbourhoods are generally more mixed in occupation than tenure. Tenure mix has a positive relationship with occupational mix, but the relationship is moderate and contrary to conventional wisdom; occupational mix and tenure mix increase with level of area deprivation. Regional analysis shows that tenure mix is higher in the tighter housing markets of London and the South. If policy is genuinely concerned with increasing social mix, attention needs to focus on affluent areas.