Two enormous municipal housing estate redevelopment programmes in Birmingham have taken significant steps forward. The two estates are Ladywood and Druids Heath, and both projects (each described by the city council as “regeneration” rather than using the more threatening word redevelopment) have caused residents to express great concern about their futures there.

The two estates, although of a similar age (Druids Heath built in the 1960s, and Ladywood in the 1950s and 60s), have very different contexts. Ladywood is an inner-city district, part of the city centre, and its post-war redevelopment replaced streets of terraced houses, courts of back-to-backs, workshops and factories. Druids Heath is in the far south of the city, on the boundary with Worcestershire, and was built on farmland.

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