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Managing the 'Underclass': Interpreting the Moral Discourse of Housing Management

School of the Built Environment, Department of Housing, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS, UK, haworta{at}westminster.ac.uk

Tony Manzi

School of the Built Environment, Department of Housing, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS, UK, manzit{at}westminster.ac.uk

This paper examines contemporary housing management practice by attention to a changing discourse within social policy, emphasising duties over rights. Current policy initiatives are based upon concerns about the collapse of foundational assumptions and a perceived decline in moral responsibility. This concern is most commonly articulated in debates about the existence of an urban underclass, linked to anti-social behaviour on housing estates. The paper argues that a communitarian outlook has exerted a significant impact on contemporary initiatives incorporating a strongly judgmental bias. As a consequence, housing practice discriminates between behaviour in social housing and privately owned property. Drawing upon post-liberal perspectives, the conclusion suggests that the predominance of a deontological discourse has resulted in policies of social control of residents.

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