Public housing is tainted by association with the imagery and stigma of the sink estate and this undermines popular support for all public housing.The mutual respect we owe each other becomes undermined, with some citizens seen as welfare dependents and somehow ‘other’: alien beings in a subculture that horrifies and fascinates middle England in equal measure. The repercussions of this ‘othering’ in turn corrode the moral and political legitimacy of the welfare state, making it harder to justify the redistribution of wealth and resources that is needed if public housing is to be valued as a vital public good like the NHS.

^{Breaking this vicious circle requires a fundamental shift in the way we think about public housing and simply building more houses cannot be the answer. Instead we need a series of reforms that rebalance our housing to meet our needs.}

^{The seminar focussed on the following questions:}

• How can we use housing and community policy to construct a progressive narrative of citizenship?
• What have been the practical implications of the consumer discourse in housing management? What impact, if any, has it had on tenants and residents?
• How important are social capital and mix in promoting equal citizenship and tackling poverty? What practical measures can be used to foster social capital and mix?