No Place Like Hulme

Here's part of a fascinating World in Action documentary from 1978 on Hulme Crescents, Manchester's slum redevelopment scheme – with 3,484 homes the biggest in Europe. Made just 7 years after the Crescents were first occupied, the documentary focusses on the already thriving social problems in them, exacerbated by the 'nowhere to run' decks and the council's housing policy of using them as a 'dumping ground'. After various attempts at retrofitting them and then a decade of abandonment, during which time it became mainly home to squatters, The Crescents were demolished in 1994, although the memory of them lives on, a kind of Wild West meets Cold War Berlin.



They'd been designed by Hugh Wilson and Lewis Womersley, the partnership who'd also go on to design Manchester's giant Arndale. Wolmersley was spreading his enthusiasm for deck access flats from his success in Sheffield, where he'd overseen the design of Park Hill. Wilson had led the design of that other futuristic town, Cumbernauld.



There's some great archive films of Hulme here. And here's some footage of the demolition.

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