This introductory review essay examines some of the key concepts and approaches framing the ongoing debate around mixed communities and housing regeneration policies around the world. This review summarizes past positive and negative side effects of social mix reported in the extant international literature. It then describes social mix housing policies in the Global East and the Global South, including China, Japan, South Korea, sub-Saharan Africa, and Singapore. In moving forward, the review essay adopts Galster and Friedrichs's challenge to think about the progressive reformation of a "social mix version 2.0"-what it might look like, and what the policy implications of such an improved version of social mix might be. Three policy implications are discussed: intentionality of social mix; mixed-income housing transit-oriented design; and learning from the Global East and Global South.

During the past 30 years, social mix has been on the policy agenda of many countries as a tool for deconcentrating urban disadvantage and enhancing social inclusion. However, these projects often take diverse forms in different institutional and policy contexts. In this article, we compare two separate studies of current urban regeneration programs in Australia and Israel. The comparative analysis reveals major similarities and differences regarding the physical and social outcomes of social mix. Our findings suggest that although both projects did not declare to create socially mixed communities, the resulting resident makeup was mixed. Despite differences in the projects' physical designs, both resulted in two communities living side-by-side but not interacting meaningfully, and therefore not gaining from the possible benefits of social mix. We argue that international comparative studies of social mix policies in different contexts allow for a better understanding of the practicalities of social mix processes for policymakers and planners.

In Australia, densification trends and affordability issues have led to increased numbers of people living in high-density multi-owned forms of housing. These housing forms are characterized by close living arrangements, necessitating co-operation with and consideration for neighbours. In the absence of cooperation and consideration, strained relations/disputes among tenants are common, having the potential to result in a range of negative consequences for individual health and wellbeing. While most current research has focused on large-scale developments, little attention has been given to issues arising from smaller-scale multi-owned housing. Through 26 in-depth interviews with residents in smaller multi-owned housing in Adelaide and Melbourne, and drawing on the concept of obtrusive intimacy, this article explores the issue of noise in small multi-owned housing and its impacts on privacy, neighbour relations, and health and wellbeing.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the causes, the nature and the extent of unneighbourly relations between neighbours living in small multi-owned residential buildings (MOBs, sometimes called strata) in Australian cities, and the effect of these relations on the health and wellbeing of residents. The impact of neighbour relations and conflicts on residents' health and wellbeing has not been explored before in the context of small MOBs in Australia (under 12 units).Design/methodology/approachThe research involved an analysis of secondary data on common problems experienced in MOBs between neighbours, in-depth face-to-face interviews with twenty-six residents and interviews with five managers of management agencies in metropolitan Melbourne (Victoria) and Adelaide (South Australia), Australia.FindingsWhen strata processes and management worked well residents were positive about living in such an arrangement. However, when the strata group was less harmonious residents reported that it impacted negatively on their health and wellbeing.Research limitations/implicationsThe study's findings are subject to the widely acknowledged limitations of small sample-based interview research. Findings indicate that there is a need to explore the benefits and disadvantages of living in small multi-owned residential buildings in Australia on a larger scale.Practical implicationsThere are three policy implications from the findings: a need for better education of prospective buyers regarding the nature of strata living; tighter regulation of rules for small multi-owned apartment buildings is required, (in a similar way to how the regulations operate in large apartment buildings); and a need to include private rental tenants living in strata in the everyday life around the management of the building.Originality/valueThe impact of neighbourly relations and conflicts on the health and wellbeing of residents living in MOBs, particularly small ones, has not been studied adequately, as current research focuses on large apartment buildings. This research addresses a gap in the literature in the study of small living arrangements (town houses, apartment buildings, terraces), with 12 or less apartments, with a focus on residents' health and wellbeing.

In Australia, various regeneration projects of public housing estates which have taken place since the 1990s have led to the relocation of tenants as part of the redevelopment process. Not much is known about the impacts of relocation on public housing tenants' lives in the Australian context. This paper draws on research completed in 2013 to explore the impacts of relocation on public housing tenants in the Carlton Housing Estate, Melbourne. The study found that improvements to the quality of housing and grounds have obscured some of the social and economic ramifications of estate redevelopment.

In this paper, we report on the level of support for tenure mix policies of residents living proximate to the Carlton Housing Estate mixed tenure redevelopment in Melbourne Australia. In a telephone survey of 200 residents living in the area surrounding the estate, the majority of respondents were supportive of tenure mix. Those who were financially comfortable or only spoke English were significantly more supportive than those reporting more difficult financial circumstances or who spoke a language other than English. The reasons for support for tenure mix included avoiding ghettoization, building community and social role modelling. The reasons for opposing tenure mix reflected a concern for the loss of public housing, a view that public and private tenants would not want to be co-located and that public tenants weren't as deserving as others of living in a good inner city location. There were also concerns from both groups about how tenure mix might work in practice. Policy implications are discussed.

This chapter considers how social housing tenants produce digital countercultural products to talk about, represent and analyses people and place relationships, and particularly how they used these products to explore territorialised representations of poverty and class. It focuses on three 'Acts' to discuss the cultural production processes within Residents' Voices, and makes use of the metaphor of the storytelling in a play as a way of organising the empirical cases. Each act describes a project undertaken under the banner of Residents' Voices, and analyses the response to stereotyping and stigma. Acts 1 and 2 focuses on a digital storytelling project and the 'Housos' research study, which were components of Residents' Voices. Act 3 covers a project that tangentially emerged from Residents' Voices, the 'Lost in the Woods' film project conducted by the Woodville Community Centre with tenants in Western Sydney.

This article draws on the concept of residential context of housing and its relationship to health. It considers a bundle of changes through implementation of a housing renewal initiative as part of the Carlton Housing Estate Upgrading Project in Melbourne, Australia. Beyond the quality and appropriateness of the housing, pertinent factors explored include social networks, safety and security, and green open space. Data collection for the research project included in-depth interviews with public housing tenants, private residents, and service providers who live on and service the estate, as well as neighborhood observations and participation in on-site events. A key finding was that the relational processes of how tenants were related to by others-specifically, the way housing was reallocated during the processes of renewal-affected social housing tenants' self-perceived health and well-being.

The idea that important links exist between urban planning and health, or where people live affects their health and well-being and opportunities to lead productive lives, is not new. Historically though acceptance of these links is inconsistent. In the mid-nineteenth century strong connections were made between urban planning and the health of populations in addressing public health issues arising through rapid industrialisation. In the twentieth century recognition of these links became more tenuous. Echoing insights from 200years ago, but reflecting on contemporary health issues the World Health Organisation, Commission on the Social Determinants of Health (2008:4) recently called for the need to place considerations of health equity ... at the heart of urban planning policies. This paper reports on research that evaluated the Health in Planning Project, which aimed to contribute to better integration and in the longer term embed health considerations into policy within the planning sector. The four year project funded by the South Australian State Department of Health was a partnership project with the Department of Planning and Local Government. The external evaluation of the project used a mixed method design including individual interviews, focus groups, and analysis of project documentation and policy and planning documents.

Recently the adoption of mindfulness or contemplative based approaches has escalated across many sectors, including in education. Proponents argue that mindfulness based teaching programs improve students' life skills, provide emotional balance, reduce stress and enhance classroom climate. To date though there is little evaluation or knowledge of how young people experience such programs introduced to classroom settings. This paper reports some key insights gained from an independent evaluation of a pilot mindfulness based teaching program implemented (over nine weeks) with a class of thirty, year seven students at a private school in Adelaide. The research methods incorporated a self-completed student questionnaire and Smiley Face evaluation sheets, interviews with teachers and classroom observations. The implications for teachers are about who should teach mindfulness in school settings, the sorts of curricula adopted, and recognition that a general school classroom is not an ideal space for conducting mindfulness-based activities.

This paper unravels a variety of perspectives about the concept of social mix, drawing on a case study of the implementation of a redevelopment project in Melbourne. The first part provides a theoretical overview of two internationally predominant academic debates around policy interpretations of this concept, namely social mix as a means for promotion of social inclusion; and as a state-led form of gentrification. These two arguments are usually presented as one, with social inclusion and reductions of concentrations of disadvantage one side of the 'social mix policy' coin, and state-led gentrification the other. This paper contributes to the national and international literature on public housing estate regeneration and social mix policies through exploring the question of whether these two ideas about social mix were shared by different stakeholders as the 'messy' process of redevelopment unfurled. Interviews were conducted with public tenants, homeowners and homebuyers, private renters and local service providers at the Carlton Housing Estate to explore the diverse perspectives of various stakeholder groups as estate design and implementation shifted. The study identified that as a result of the global financial crisis and the developers exerting pressure on government there was a gradual move away from perceiving social mix as a policy tool for encouraging social inclusion at Carlton, between public housing tenants and private residents, towards a different form of social mix and inclusion. Contrary to intentions, the revised form of social mix at Carlton was perceived as a means to harness market capital and attract higher income residents to the inner city.

Implementing mixed tenure projects is an ongoing practice in Australian cities despite questions raised about the soundness of the underlying assumptions. This paper draws on the concept of 'right to the city', based on Lefebvre's work as an organising framework to investigate the findings of empirical research on social mix policy through the case study of Carlton Housing Estate Redevelopment Project in Melbourne, Australia. From Lefebvre's work we understand the right to the city as a right to participate in and influence decision-making, and to enjoy and access local urban spaces. Data collection included in-depth interviews with public housing tenants, private residents and service providers, as well as neighbourhood observations and participation in on-site events. The findings reveal that public housing tenants' opportunities to influence and participate in decision-making processes for the redevelopment project have been limited and privatisation of public space has created ongoing symbolic and physical barriers to their fully accessing on-site 'open' space. Numerous tensions are revealed in the processes of implementing social mix policies particularly in terms of tenants' opportunities to participate and fully enjoy newly designed open spaces in their community; in effect tenants have been denied a right to the city.

Reprinted from 'the historical construction of 'the public housing problem' and deconcentration policies', in Rae Dufty-Jones and Dallas Rogers ed. Housing in 21st-Century Australia: people, Practices and Policies (Ashgate, 2015), pp. 173-186. Copyright © 2015. Published version uploaded in accordance with the publisher's policy.

This book outlines the numerous challenges facing policy-makers within the Republic of Ireland in trying to address the problems of dealing with high levels of disadvantage concentrated in particul...

Antisocial behaviour including littering and graffiti, crime and social disorder pose an important social problem within contemporary cities. Perceptions regarding the extent of antisocial behaviour are likely to differ not only along socioeconomic and demographic lines of the individual but importantly are also likely to differ depending on the type of neighbourhood or community one resides in. In particular, it is often assumed that antisocial behaviour, both real and perceived, will be higher in localities characterised by higher levels of public housing. Situated broadly in the antisocial behaviour and neighbourhood effects/social mix literature this paper examines perceptions of antisocial behaviour reported in a large sample survey in Australia focusing specifically on how responses differ by the housing social mix characteristics of the neighbourhood the respondent lives in.