Tales from the fifteenth floor?

Two months ago I started a PhD looking at social housing in London and Newcastle. News that I’d deserted the world of paid work, in favour of the student life, spread quickly amongst my friends, colleagues and family, with mixed response. Some congratulated me, others scoffed at the thought (assuming a PhD is a cop out), current and past doctoral students warned me of the dangers of getting to close to my project and of its isolating potential, yet others felt the need to commiserate me on my choice.

All this aside, I feel emensly privileged to have the time to read, reflect, research and write about a subject I’m really interested in, and one that impacts upon people’s lives at a base level - you don’t really get much more fundamental than a roof over your head.  The aim of this blog is to share some of the things I learn along the way and to provide a space to explore my ideas outside of the constraints of academic writing.

I’ve called it tales from the fifteenth floor because that’s where I am, sitting on my sofa, typing away on my laptop, looking out at a view of East London from my flat in Great Arthur House, a residential tower in the middle of the Golden Lane Estate, in the City of London. Living here not only provides me with a comfortable space to work and a seemingly endless supply of tea and biscuits (for good or bad), but as a social housing estate that has seen and survived the rapid changes to housing provision over the last 50 years, I’ve got a lot to learn from it too.