Would you live in a housing estate made only for middle class people?

[Melvinaa]

/afforded only by those with professional salaries?

I’ve always lived in areas where poor and rich live cheek by jowl. But I’m considering move to a housing estate which is designed/afforded only by professional people. So the overall demographics are going to be very middle class because rents range from £2000-£5000

I'm sure you will find some other issue for reverse snobbery and class solidarity to assuage your guilt.

Yes, I would. Having made the decision to live on an estate of mixed housing, some privately owned and some social housing as of three years ago. The families across the road from us live a very different lifestyle to our own, and we are frequently disturbed at all times of the day and night by their excessive, selfish noise. If I could get out, I would. And eventually will.

Higher standard of living? Living amongst professional people?

You clearly don't know that many middle class professional people 😁

Really, is this bonkers America by any chance?

Come now!! You will always have a better standard of living if you have to pay more money to live somewhere.
You will always have more hassle from lower income families than you will with higher income families.
It's why in schools in high income areas have far less behaviour problems than state schools in shit areas.

No. I'd prefer not to live on a housing estate full stop, and prefer rural to suburban areas.

Our street is a mixture of privately owned 1950s built ex key worker housing and some bungalows with mostly elderly and disabled people owned by a housing association. Nice mixture of working class and middle class. Not as posh as other locations in the village but a nice place to live and really good value for money. Lots of families with kids attending local primary and secondary schools and people who have lived here a long time.

If you are comfortable with living there then go or if not look for another area.

Exactly. I could win the lottery tomorrow. It wouldn’t make me middle class; it’d make me rich. I don’t know why people confuse the two

😂

A lot of higher end NY condos have these sort of checks- the residents committee effectively has right of veto over new owners and tenants. I remember there was a drama years ago as Madonna got blackballed and asked my friend who lived in NY and she confirmed that it's fairly common- they basically don't want high profile people (press/ fans) or anyone who's likely to be noisy.

No thanks! I love my council estate and the people on it are kind and down to earth.

We don’t all have access to council housing either, so they are exclusionary too. Very few areas are truly diverse and inclusive.

Rents of £2000 - £5000 are a snip to any successful working class drug dealer.

This is not the case in London. It is cheaper to rent than to own esp in central London and people with higher incomes would not worry they cannot afford the rent hike. In fact not tying up all their money in a deposit gives them more financial freedom to invest. If you wanted to live in a high spec apartment with concierge and pool etc then it is far smarter to rent than pay £1 million with all the associated stamp duty and service charges.

I say this as an owner of a london flat. I own because I have a modest income and when I was in my 20s i was scared our income would grow slower than any rent hikes and we would move faraway from our jobs before even properly beginning our careers. So we bought so our mortgage payment was fixed for 5 years while our incomes caught up. It helped us stay in London. Our deposit of 58k is not very large to do anything re investing. If we had higher incomes and more assets, I may just rent. Also live in zone 3 so it is still slightly cheaper to own than to rent and my flat is a very modest 1930s 2 bed flat. I find for the more expensive fancy flats, its cheaper to rent

Most of the middle class people I know don't rent, they tend to buy.

Gosh that's sounds bizarre! I wouldn't pass that as I'm a self employed designer with a low income, though do live in a very middle class leafy neighbourhood of London thanks to inheriting from my husband (terraced houses around £1-1.5m).
Your estate sounds far too homogeneous a population. I want artists (who can be very wealthy), writers, musicians as well as doctors and lawyers. I do not want criminals or plain nasty people though, no later how wealthy.

I did and I didn't like it. Curtain twitching and people going on about what they didn't like looking at (our tree for some weird reason) and trying to make everyone fit in with their way, which was the only right way.

Renting is for poor people? Have you seen the rents in London?

I was about to post that both my plumber and my electrician could afford this, while I would struggle. Money and class were decoupled some time ago in British society. In other cultures, where the class system is based purely on earnings, it might still hold true, but here, where class (which is a horrible concept in itself) is not based on wealth, income =/= reliable class indicator.

I've worked in housing, including mixed income developments.

Although some low-level stuff is weakly correlated with income, the really dreadful ones, could be either. And interestingly, after there were these massive issues, people would assume the person lived in some of the social housing homes. But they often didn't and we couldn't say either way. I'm sure those people are on here slagging off lower income renters when they aren't aware the dickhead that ruined their life has the same income as them.

And yes, I've seen really bad noise, DV, drugs, criminal behaviour and other issues in all homes. And the middle class ones lawyer up and fight me. So it goes on for longer and is worse.

Oh the ‘working hard’ trope again - cos poor minimum wage people don’t work hard… 🙄

I live in ‘shameless-ville’ and your attitude makes me want to weep. I’m degree educated, professional job, law abiding, gardener, radio 4 listener, Toast wearer - all the middle class signifiers you’d ever want but you’d write me off as unworthy of being your neighbour because I don’t have the affluence and housing cache that inherited money can afford? All the working class people I live around are fundamentally decent. Yes you get the odd antisocial prick, but I’ve met far more pricks amongst the rah-crowd than I’ve ever come across here.

Middle class doesn’t always equate to better neighbours. Infact I live by some professionals who have a very entitled attitude, they think because they have more money they have more rights and look down on people they consider lower than them.
The most middle class estate in my town attracts the criminals. It’s an estate that is notorious for car thefts and break-ins. I suppose because it’s richer pickings for the thieves.
I’d rather live in a mixed area.

Well I wouldn't be living there - as we wouldn't pass those background checks!

I did think though, that all new build estates had to include social housing as part of planning permission ?

Yeah I agree. I wish I could live in a place where all of my neighbours were courteous with bins and parking and noise etc but an area being middle class wouldn't guarantee that.

No not Merseyside. But they’re all over the country. Working class folks don’t just sit and home fagging it and beating their kids contrary to what the middle classes on MN like to think. Many of them are out making the most of what they’ve got - learning, travelling, building, creating and trying to better things for their kids.