Saffron Woodcraft

Anthropology

Re-imagining the London Terrace: sustainability, community and the urban family in East London

Why do some planned new communities flourish and others fail? How do new urban neighbourhoods represent political narratives about what a 21st century city should be? And how are competing ideas about urban development, sustainability, citizenship, community, family and home materialized in new communities? This research will address these questions by looking at how a new community in London is imagined, constructed and inhabited. Saffron is interested in how narratives about London's future, economic growth, housing need and sustainable development are interpreted by the planners, architects, developers and public agencies working on those neighbourhoods to create new visions of urban social life and new built forms.