1. Not all social housing is high rise or high density. Look outside of the cities for example - new towns. Lessons can be learned this time.
2. Much of the social housing was sold off in the 80's I think, the trick is to keep government ownership of it, not sell it for a pittance and let private landlords profit from price increases.
Outside of the cities these are still high density, just instead of a 30 stories block those are 3-4 stories blocks in the burbs.
Concentrating poor and vulnerable people isn't a good strategy they do better when they are surrounded by the better off, having 2 low income families on a street would produce a much better outcome and shoving 200 of them.
Social housing in the UK is complex, at some point nearly 80% of the people lived in social housing, it wasn't for low income families but rather for nearly anyone but the most affluent which often held titles and on the other spectrum the most remote and rural communities.
Social housing was seen as a means to bring workers into the cities during the industrialization of the UK.
Today despite the fact that anyone is still eligible outside of political corruption which ironically nearly exclusively plagues Labour councillors, MP's and party officials which somehow jump to the front of the queue despite earning well above the mean council housing is seen as a solution for the working poor.
Councils already offer rent assistance, have council properties which are used to temporary house vulnerable people, building more of those won't help just look what happens when you have council flats in new build projects, drugs, anti social behaviour and damage to properties simply due to the high concentration of these individuals.
So while having 20-30% social flats in a new build project might seem like a good idea the only thing that it causes is a huge backlash from the regular tenants due to this behaviour and nearly always they end up winning.
1. Not all social housing is high rise or high density. Look outside of the cities for example - new towns. Lessons can be learned this time.
2. Much of the social housing was sold off in the 80's I think, the trick is to keep government ownership of it, not sell it for a pittance and let private landlords profit from price increases.