Paul Watt joined the Department of Sociology as a Visiting Professor in 2023 and will be there until 2026. He also studied in the Department (MPhil. Sociology, University of London). Paul is Emeritus Professor of Urban Studies at Birkbeck, University of London, where he worked until 2023. He previously held posts at the University of Wolverhampton, University of East London, and Buckinghamshire New University. Paul is a member of the editorial board of ‘City’.
Research interests
Paul is an urbanist whose research examines the inter-relationship between social inequalities, space and place in contemporary cities. Paul's research interests include social housing, urban regeneration, gentrification, neighbourhoods and communities, homelessness, housing activism, the 2012 London Olympic Games, and suburbanisation. His most recent book is Estate Regeneration and Its Discontents: Public Housing, Place and Inequality in London (Policy Press, 2021).
Paul is currently working on two research projects. The first - 'Living at Regenerated Neighbourhoods in London' - is funded by a British Academy, Small Research Grant. The second – ‘The History and Regeneration of an East London Housing Estate’ – focusses on the history and redevelopment of the Carpenters’ estate in the London borough of Newham.
Books
Watt, P. (2021) Estate Regeneration and Its Discontents: Public Housing, Place and Inequality In London. Bristol: Policy Press.
Watt, P. and Smets, P. (Editors) (2017) Social Housing and Urban Renewal: A Cross-National Perspective. Bingley: Emerald.
Cohen, P. and Watt, P. (Editors) (2017) London 2012 and the Post-Olympics City: A Hollow Legacy? Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Watt, P. and Smets, P. (Editors) (2014) Mobilities and Neighbourhood Belonging in Cities and Suburbs. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Butler, T. and Watt, P. (2007) Understanding Social Inequality. London: Sage.
Journal articles
Watt, P. and Morris, A. (2024) ‘Special Feature: Putting urban displacement in its place, City.
Watt, P. (2023) ‘Displacement anxiety and psychosocial degeneration at a regenerating social housing estate’, The Sociological Review, 71(2): 351-369.
Watt, P. (2023) ‘Taking a long view perspective on estate regeneration: Before, during and after the New Deal for Communities in London’, Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 38: 141–170.
Watt, P. (2022) ‘Displacement and estate demolition: Multi-scalar place attachment among relocated social housing residents in London’, Housing Studies, 37(9): 1686-1710.
Corcillo, P. and Watt, P. (2022) ‘Social mixing or mixophobia in regenerating East London? “Affordable housing”, gentrification, stigmatisation and the post-Olympics East Village’, People, Place and Policy, 16(3): 236-254.
Gillespie, T., Hardy, K. and Watt, P. (2021) ‘Surplus to the city: Austerity urbanism, displacement and letting die’, Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 53(7): 1713-1729.
Watt, P. (2020) ‘“Press-ganged” Generation Rent: Youth homelessness, precarity and poverty in East London’, People, Place and Policy, 14(2): 128-141.
Watt, P. (2020) ‘Territorial stigmatisation and poor housing at a London sink estate’, Social Inclusion, 8(1): 20–33.
Watt, P. (2018) ‘“This pain of moving, moving, moving”: Evictions, displacement and logics of expulsion in London’, L’Annee sociologique, 68: 67-100.
Watt, P. (2018) ‘Gendering the right to housing in the city: Homeless female lone parents in Post-Olympics, austerity East London’, Cities, 76: 43-51.
Gillespie, T., Hardy, K. and Watt, P. (2018) ‘Austerity urbanism and Olympic counter-legacies: Gendering, defending and expanding the urban commons in East London’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 36(5): 812-830.
Watt, P. (2016) ‘A nomadic war machine in the metropolis: En/countering London’s 21st century housing crisis with Focus E15’, City, 20(2): 297-320.
Watt, P. and Minton, A. (2016) ‘London’s housing crisis and its activisms’, City, 20(2): 204-221. Reader of Architecture Reader of Architecture
Watt, P. (2013) ‘“It’s not for us”: Regeneration, the 2012 Olympics and the gentrification of East London’, City,17(1): 99-118.
Kennelly, J. and Watt, P. (2013) ‘Restricting the public in public space: The London 2012 Olympic Games, hyper-securitization and marginalized youth’, Sociological Research Online, 18(2)
Hodkinson, S., Watt, P. and Mooney, G. (2013) ‘Neoliberal housing policy: Time for a critical re-appraisal’, Critical Social Policy, 33(1): 3-16.
Kennelly, J. and Watt, P. (2012) ‘Seeing Olympic effects through the eyes of marginally housed youth: Changing places and the gentrification of East London’, Visual Studies, 27(2): 151-160.
Watt, P. (2011) ‘Work-life mobility and stability: The employment histories of immigrant workers at a unionized Toronto hotel’, Hospitality & Society, 1(2): 117-136.
Kennelly, J. and Watt, P. (2011) ‘Sanitizing public space in Olympic host cities: The spatial experiences of marginalized youth in 2010 Vancouver and 2012 London’, Sociology, 45(5): 765-781.
Watt, P. (2010) ‘Focus article: Unravelling the narratives and politics of belonging to place’, Housing, Theory and Society, 27(2): 153-159
Watt, P. (2009) ‘Living in an oasis: Middle-class disaffiliation and selective belonging in an English suburb’, Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 41(12): 2874-2892.
Watt, P. (2009) ‘Housing stock transfers, regeneration and state-led gentrification in London’, Urban Policy and Research, 27(3): 229-242.
Gunter, A. and Watt, P. (2009) ‘Grafting, going to college and working on road: youth transitions and cultures in an East London neighbourhood’, Journal of Youth Studies, 12(5): 515-529.
Watt, P. (2008) ‘“Underclass” and “ordinary people” discourses: Representing/re-presenting council tenants in a housing campaign’, Critical Discourse Studies, 5(3): 345-357.
Watt, P. (2008) ‘The only class in town? Gentrification and the middle-class colonization of the city and the urban imagination’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 32(1): 206-211.
Watt, P. (2007) ‘“I need people that are happy, always smiling”: Guest interaction and emotional labour in a Canadian downtown hotel’, Just Labour: A Canadian Journal of Work and Society, 10: 45-59.
Watt, P. (2006) ‘Respectability, roughness and race: Neighbourhood place images and the making of working-class social distinctions in London’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 30(4): 776-797.
Watt, P. (2005) ‘Housing histories and fragmented middle-class careers: The case of marginal professionals in London council housing’, Housing Studies, 20(3): 359-381.
Watt, P. (2003) ‘Urban marginality and economic restructuring: Local authority tenants and employment in an inner London Borough’, Urban Studies, 40(9): 1769-1789.
Cox, R. and Watt, P. (2002) ‘Globalization, polarization and the informal sector: The case of paid domestic workers in London’, Area, 34(1): 39-47.
Watt, P. and Jacobs, K. (2000) ‘Discourses of social exclusion: An analysis of “Bringing Britain together: a national strategy for neighbourhood renewal”’, Housing, Theory and Society, 17(1): 14-26.
Book chapters
Watt, P. (2023) ‘Housing and social change in Outer London’. In: T. Kaminer, L. Ma and H. Runting (Eds.), Urbanizing Suburbia: Hyper-Gentrification, the Financialization of Housing, and the Remaking of the Outer European City Berlin: Jovis verlag, pp. 190-211.
Watt, P. (2022) ‘Getting along with the neighbours? Neighbourliness, unneighbourliness and community in a London suburb’. In: L. Cheshire (Ed.), Neighbours Around the World: An International Look at the People Next Door. Bingley: Emerald, pp. 169-188.
Allen, D. and Watt, P. (2022) ‘Place attachment in non-place spaces? Community, belonging and mobilities in post-suburban South East England’. In: P.J. Maginn and K.B. Anacker (Eds.), Suburbia in the 21st Century: From Dreamscape to Nightmare? Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 112-137.
Watt, P. (2018) ‘Social housing not social cleansing: Contemporary housing struggles in London’. In: N. Gray (Ed.), A Century of Housing Struggles: From the 1915 Rent Strikes to Contemporary Housing Activisms. Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 117-135.
Watt, P. (2017) ‘Social housing and urban renewal: An introduction’. In: P. Watt and P. Smets, P. (Eds.), Social Housing and Urban Renewal: A Cross-National Perspective. Bingley: Emerald, pp. 1-36.
Watt, P. and Bernstock, P. (2017) ‘Legacy for whom? Housing in Post-Olympic East London’. In: P. Cohen and P. Watt (Eds.), London 2012 and the Post-Olympics City: A Hollow Legacy? Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 91-138.
Watt, P., Millington, G. and Huq, R. (2014) ‘East London mobilities: The Cockney Diaspora and the remaking of the Essex ethnoscape’. In: P. Watt and P. Smets (Eds.), Mobilities and Neighbourhood Belonging in Cities and Suburbs. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 121-144.
Watt, P. (2013) ‘Community and belonging in a London suburb: A study of incomers’. In: M. Kusenbach and K.E. Paulsen (Eds.), Home: International Perspectives on Culture, Identity and Belonging. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, pp. 225-247.
Watt, P. (2009) ‘Social housing and regeneration in London’. In: R. Imrie, L. Lees and M. Raco (Eds.), Regenerating London. London: Routledge, pp. 212-233.
Watt, P. (2008) ‘Moving to a better place? Geographies of aspiration and anxiety in the Thames Gateway’. in: P. Cohen and M.J. Rustin (Eds.), London’s Turning: The Making of Thames Gateway. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp.149-167.
Watt, P. (2007) ‘From the dirty city to the spoiled suburb’. In: B. Campkin and R. Cox (Eds.), Dirt: New Geographies of Cleanliness and Contamination. London: I.B. Tauris, pp. 80-91.
Selected recent media appearances
‘London is building more social housing – but that hardly helps’, Berliner Morgenpost, 29 August 2023,
‘“It’s a Scandal”: How Property Developers Failed to Sell a Single Flat in Balfron Tower’, Novara Media, 4 August 2023
‘Demolition or disrepair: the choice facing residents on one London estate’, Open Democracy, 22 November 2022.
‘Why It’s So Hard To Find An Affordable Home’, The B1M, 31 August 2022.
‘It can’t be sustainable: The hidden costs of demolishing council housing estates’, Big Issue, 14 May 2022.
‘Town Hall told wrecking ball strategy for estates will create areas where only affluent feel at home’, Camden New Journal, 4 March 2022.
'How UK housing segregates residents', The Guardian, 7 October 2021.
‘Interview: Professor Paul Watt, University of London’, New Start (regeneration magazine), 30 April 2021
'It's going to be our little paradise': can co-ops solve the housing crisis?’, The Guardian, 27 March, 2019.
‘Over 55,000 homeless families forced to move’, The Times, 7 May 2018.
‘Municipalisation - Taking back from Private Landlords’, Real Media, 20 September 2017.
‘The Neighbourhood Effect’