Is this a council estate thing, and if so why?

[Fluorescentwater]

Growing up my parents owned our homes, and until recently I’ve been privately renting. I’ve visited plenty of friends and boyfriends on council estates growing up though, and it seems to be a bit of a pattern that the residents there have much laxer boundaries. People are often walking in and out of each others houses uninvited, having regular garden parties that the whole street’s invited to, lending each other money every week, cooking each other meals, looking after each others kids and generally just really involved in each others lives.

I’ve always wondered if this is specific to council estates as I’ve never noticed it in privately rented/owned areas, and if so does anyone know why it tends to happen that way?

Definitely not a council estate bashing thread. I’m just curious because I’ve been looking at home swapping recently and practically every home description includes ‘neighbours are all lovely and very chatty, it’s like one big family round here’. Most places I’ve lived everyone just keeps themselves to themselves, a smile and a nod and bringing neighbours bins back in if they’ve forgotten but nothing much more than that.

Wouldn't lend money etc but we don't live in a council estate but all the kids have always been in and out of each others houses constantly etc

They get fed at whoever's house they happen to be at usually and stuff like that

Yes and looking out for each other, helping others and looking over. It's not all has as portrayed and my experience has been positive one.

I grew up on a council estate too. People there tended to be less up their own arses than the ones who owned their homes. I remember one woman who moved onto the estate from the other side of the country telling my mother all about how she subsidised us because she owned her house.

There's a couple over the road here who moved to a private rental from a council estate, a plumber and his girlfriend. They have no boundaries whatsoever and shout outside most of the time and over share personal details. They're always imposing on people and asking for favours or to borrow something.

People are civil to their faces, but they're grumbled about and called the chavs. Unfortunately, there's also snobbery about their white van and their family who visit from the estate as they like the congregate in their front garden.

I think it's a working class thing, on balance. Though the working class has many subsections. I think they would be the lower end.

I live in a council estate, it's like that here. When my kids where little our neighbour used to set up massive bouncy castles/slides across the road and just turn cars away so the kids could all play. Kids in and out all the time.

The old man down my road has mowed my lawn for 20 years... I've never asked him too. Now he's over 90 and still does it although sometimes when he's strimming I lose the tops off bushes and solar lights 🙈😂 I'll get shopping for him or take him to appointments (dentist/gp) in return. We all stop and chat and new neighbours always cause a little concern as you never know if they will get involved or hate us 😂

I understand the sort of community you mean but it's not specific to council estates, agree it's a bit of a working class thing but that could be in private terraced streets too.

I grew up on council estates as a child and early adulthood. None of them had that kind of community - which I think was because we came from an ethnic minority, and we didn't quite fit in, and my family kept their own distance too. I'm quite a private person and wouldn't like the lack of boundaries - I live in privately owned flats now and don't really know my neighbours, and happy to keep things that way.

Local authorities are great landlords, so people tend to stay put once they've got a council property. That gives time to build very close relationships. Also, most people there are in the same earnings brackets, so no one has more or less than anyone else. No feelings of judgement or superiority. I grew up on a council estate and consider myself to have been raised by a village. My parents still live there, as do the parents of many of the kids I grew up with.

I live in a private estate with some housing association houses. It was only built 4 years ago but everyone is pretty friendly, the kids play together and and help each other out. I would happily take neighbours kids to school if they needed me to and vice Versa. Apart from one woman and her brat everyone else are decent and nice people. Just today I took my kids and the neighbours kids to the park.

Our estate is like this, although more the old
timers who have been there for a couple
of generations and even they are nostalgic for the good old days of the ‘90s. But if you’d rather mind your own business nobody gives you a hard time. Everyone knows your business regardless, though.

We loved in council housing when I was young. There were a lot of families with kids the same age. We didn't have much money but everyone shared. I remember the parents 'shutting' our road so we could all learn to rode with no stabilisers on the same few old bikes. I loved it. We took my best friend on holiday to a caravan in Scarborough with us. Mum saved so hard for that holiday.
I have generally always got on well with neighbours and become friends in some sort of way.

BertieBotts
Council housing began before the 50’s/60s. Building started after World War 1 in the late 1920s

Lax boundaries is an odd way to put a strong sense of community.

It's a working class thing. The community sprit of Call the Midwife v the aloofness of Downton 😆

It's easier to get to know your neighbours when you have a very long tenancy, vs private renting. Some people will have lived there for decades.

It's not exclusive to council estates, couldnt wait to move from my previous house, too many 'sit com' neighbours dropping by with a bottle of wine. Lots of them 'working from home'. Boundaries! Wait until you're asked.

Ha, Christ.

You make it sound nice.

We had to move to a hellhole.

We live across the road from a huge estate and dd goes to school on it. It’s all hanging out of windows screaming at each other, sleeping with each others boyfriends, half the kids in dds class are related somehow due to this, parents have fights in the playgrounds, usually over who is shagging who (they are loud about it).

Dirty children covered in head lice running around the streets at al hours.

Everyone over sharing everything. The stuff I’ve been told just from queuing up to pick dd up from the classroom, things that I find abhorrent, just delivered with a laugh and a shrug to an absolute stranger. I could be anyone yet they are telling me about the casual crimes they commit and takes of social services like it’s nothing.

In the summer the park is taken over by families smoking weed and drinking and letting their massive dogs chase people while they sit and laugh, encouraging their children to act like little shits.

It’s not wonderful at all, it looks like a living hell to me.

I wonder if there's an element of people who apply to live on a council estate because they know others there and want to be close by. If you can play the waiting, you're more likely to be likely to be able live in same area. Whereas if you're buying or renting its far more random what comes up, and then whether you can afford, or have money to maintain in say next 5-10 years - whereas living on a council estate you know maintenance is included in the price you agree to pay.

Growing up my grandparents, Auntie and my cousin lived in the same road. Presently my Auntie and her DD live in the same road.

I lived on a Navy estate for 11 years and it was very much like this. I think it was because we were all roughly at the same stage of life, so easier to bond. But when people fell out it was a nightmare, the whole estate seemed to pick a side. We were never short of gossip that’s for sure.

My friends area is like that. They borrow/lend things to each other as they simply can’t afford to buy everything they need. There’s no shame in it as next week it will be the other person needing help. I’m quite jealous of that community feel. In my area people are suspicious of people who don’t have things they need so probably wouldn’t lend you anything.

Our old street had sections like this as it was mixed private, owned and housing.

The housing house’s definitely were always popping in and out and it wasn’t always because they had been there years as we watched some come and go over the over ten years we rented there. But if there was drama and police action it was always one of those houses. One days best friends the next day an argument over a tenner or something else leading to an argument in the middle of the street. Then mates again because someone else is now the enemy of the one who was owed a tenner.

In my own experience yes. Pros and cons but mainly pros.

i was bought up on a council estate.
Family houses yes you just walk in, i don’t think it’s just estates as when we moved and my parents bought - family still just walked in. But you don’t walk into everyone homes.

I remember neighbours children knocking to go play and in the summer you’d end up at whoever had the paddling pool up. With juice cartoons and ice pops. Christmas Eve you would go to peoples homes - families lived closer so would be families and close friends not necessarily the whole street :)

My Gran still leaves her door unlocked & you just wander in - I can’t get her to understand it’s dangerous.

That's a load of weird stereotypes in your post op. Sounds like something out of a film, romanticising deprived areas.

This is a few years out of date now as I am late 50s. I was bought up on various council estates until I left home to get married at 20. My parents still lived in HA homes until very recently.

No we did not experience anything that you mentioned. No random street parties, not in and out of each others houses, no cooking for each other or looking after neighbours children, no borrowing or lending of money (wtf).

My daughter lives in an ex council estate with a mixture of HA housing and owner occupied. Doesn't happen there either.

I grew up on a council estate and now rent privately and agree somewhat. Maybe it's because people on council estates have less to do with their free time? Maybe socialising is more important?

Whereas people who live in private or privately rented properties tend to have more money for hobbies and going out etc. The kids are probably inside playing on gadgets and games consoles, or going to various clubs etc.

That God for this post. I was starting to think I had been living in a parallel universe on this thread.

Mind you my parents moved frequently, were pretty antisocial and my dad had middle class aspirations, so maybe that explains the difference. 😃

Definitely not a working class thing. I grew up working class (I’m in my 20s). My parents owned a semi-detached house in a quiet cul-de-sac. They didn't allow me to bring friends round without several days notice. They didn’t host house parties either.

However, I had a few school friends who were from council estates and others who were middle-class (big detached houses). With the council estate friends, I found that it was acceptable to just walk in with a friend uninvited. Their parents (usually mum) didn’t care. They also hosted house parties.