James Gregory's In the Mix presents an analysis of how and why so many British cities and the neighbourhoods within them have become segregated by tenure and income. In response, it offers a series of proposals for ‘narrowing the gap between public and private housing’ in order to create better integrated and socially just communities. Gregory's style is clear and compelling, free from the cramped liturgical prose that is found in so much other writing on housing policy and practice.

The ‘mixed community’ has been put forward by policy-makers and politicians as the solution to a range of problems, from social isolation to housing market failure. Rarely, however, has the rhetorical ideal of the ‘living tapestry of the mixed community’ been properly translated into meaningful definitions which can be acted upon. The 1997–2010 Labour government came closest to developing a mixed communities ‘programme’, but it did not extend beyond a small number of ‘demonstration projects’ and was derailed by the credit and housing crises which dominated that administration's final years. Mixed communities are everywhere but nowhere: everywhere stated as an ideal, nowhere formulated and implemented at a meaningful scale. Analysing mixed communities is as frustrating a task as the hunting of the Snark.

Gregory acknowledges the confusion around the concept of mixed communities, and goes some way to putting it within a more rigorous intellectual framework. At other points, however, the analysis in the pamphlet reflects, rather than resolves, the general confusion in the literature about the problem which mixed communities are supposed to solve, and what benefits mixed communities deliver. In particular, the pamphlet does not engage with the practical consequences of the process of mixing and its impact on the most deprived households.

Published by the Fabian Society, a social democratic think-tank affiliated to the UK Labour Party, Gregory attempts to place both his diagnosis of the problem and his proposals for the future within a broader social democratic critique of housing policy and practice. His analysis of how communities have become un-mixed is persuasive, well-researched and fluent. In contrast to the celebrated universalism of the National Health Service, social democrats face their dystopia with regard to housing. The state administers an under-funded and residual ambulance service for the poorest, while everyone else competes in an under-regulated market. A further consequence is the ‘crisis of welfare legitimacy’ (p. 46) in housing, as the majority of the population gain no apparent benefit and have no stake in publicly run housing.

The historical analysis is not new, and Gregory references several works which offer a longer version of the post-war housing story. The distinctive element is the more explicit political and ideological reading of housing policy. As the author puts it, ‘while academic analysis is wary of talking about causes here, there is a compelling story to be told’ (p. 15) about the ideological trends and political decisions which have shaped the social make-up and balance of our neighbourhoods.

Not all readers will share the social democratic perspective, but the increasing willingness of mainstream housing studies to engage openly in issues of ideology is certainly to be welcomed. Gregory's concision and fluency in explaining complex trends also makes the pamphlet an important contribution to our understanding of post-war housing. Less convincing is the identification of the practical problems which mixed communities are supposed to solve. Social segregation and disadvantage are chronic and embedded issues, but they result from a complex set of inter-locked factors, including area affects, failures in public services, economic shocks and the sorting effects of allocations systems.

Gregory recognises this complexity at some points, but at others focuses too much on the role of housing tenure and location as a determinant of life chances, and reaches for contentious and contestable terms like ‘apartheid cities’ (p. ix) to underline his case. The issues described are real, but there are many solutions which could be applied to them. The related problem is the confusion over the benefits of mixed communities in the wider literature which is also reflected in In the Mix. There is little evidence for the benefits of mixed communities, especially those that relate to behaviour changes through mentoring or raising aspirations.

The evidence we have tends to come from small-scale projects or international examples. Both of these sources are valuable, but they do not amount to a cogent evidence base for implementing a programme of mixed communities. Particularly when one considers the negative impacts of the processes of mixing on deprived households, such as displacement, and the opportunity costs of overlooking more effective anti-poverty strategies. To echo an earlier point, in some parts of the analysis, Gregory recognises the sketchiness of hard evidence, but at others refers to the ‘great body of work that we have on mix’ (p. 52).

The policy solutions set out in the final section of the pamphlet are detailed, coherent and well argued. They include a call for more imaginative and integrated forms of cross-sector housing management, in which housing policy is ‘used as a vehicle for broader service delivery’ (p. 48), higher design and construction standards for social housing, radical changes to housing benefit and a reformed right to buy working alongside a regulated ‘right to sell’.

These reforms would create neighbourhoods which are more stable and economically viable, and offer greater opportunities for deprived households, but the fact that they are mixed seems more of a welcome by-product than an imperative for public policy and expenditure.

In summary, while In the Mix does not make the resounding case for mixed communities as an urgent policy imperative, it does provide a comprehensive account of why so many neighbourhoods are divided and offers a wide-ranging and coherent set of measures for making them places of opportunity over despair, in which the public housing is a recognised and valued common good.