‘Hulme was a failed utopian dream on a council estate,” says the DJ Luke Una. “A city within a city. Like nowhere else I’ve ever seen.”
Una lived in Manchester’s Hulme Crescents in the late 80s and early 90s. Constructed in 1972, the vast brutalist estate was the largest public housing development in Europe and could house up to 13,000 people. Intended as a futuristic blueprint for social housing, design and safety flaws became apparent within two years. In 1974, a child died falling from one of the easily climbable balconies. Cockroaches were plentiful, the heating system unaffordable, and residents were soon petitioning to be re-housed.
