stylistic:tone, information:extraction
Streets in the sky

Streets in the sky is a style of architecture that emerged in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s. Generally built to replace run-down terraced housing, the new designs included not only modern improvements such as inside toilets, but also shops and other community facilities within high-rise blocks. Examples of the buildings and developments are Trellick Tower, Balfron Tower, Broadwater Farm, Robin Hood Gardens and Keeling House in London, Hunslet Grange in Leeds and Park Hill, Sheffield, and Castlefields and Southgate Estate, Runcorn. These were an attempt to develop a new architecture, differentiated from earlier large housing estates, such as Quarry Hill flats in Leeds. Alison and Peter Smithson were the architects of Robin Hood Gardens. As another large example, in 2005 it was decided to carry out a 20-year process of demolition and replacement of dwellings with modern houses in the Aylesbury Estate in south London, built in 1970. The Hulme Crescents in Manchester were the largest social housing scheme in Europe when built in 1972 but lasted just 22 years. The Crescents had one of the worst reputations of any British social housing schemes and were marred by numerous design and practical problems.

The ideal of Streets in the Sky often did not work in practice. Unlike an actual city street, these walkways were not thoroughfares, and often came to a dead end multiple storeys above the ground. They lacked a regular flow of passers-by, and the walkways and especially the stairwells could not be seen by anyone elsewhere, so there was no deterrent to crime and disorder. There were no "eyes on the street" as advocated by Jane Jacobs in her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities. The Unité d'Habitation in Marseille provides a more successful example of the concept, with the fifth floor walkway including a shop and café.