Australia’s public housing towers are regarded as dated and ugly. But what will happen when they’re gone?

Tehiya Umer at the Flemington towers, which will be one of the first to be demolished and redeveloped as new social and affordable housing in Victoria. Photograph: Christopher Hopkins/The Guardian

There is a politics of place, and a life in locations. There are the intimacies of a home, and memories that lodge in the walls. None of these are easily accommodated, or even noticed, by a government intent on a Big Announcement – by a premier making one more state-changing innovation before he resigns.

So it was that on 20 September Tehiya Umer was surprised when, without warning, two women walked into the community room at the foot of the tower at 120 Racecourse Road, Flemington, and took away a chair and table.