This research explores some of the first cases of intergenerational living in London; Buccleuch House, the ‘Lifecycle Home’ in Chobham Manor, and Supportmatch UK Homesharing. The cases are studied through a number of themes, ranging from the motivation behind engagement in intergenerational living, the benefits and drawbacks of such a living arrangements, the design of intergenerational schemes, and the viability of intergenerational developments for the mainstream housing market. The experiences of key stakeholders involved in the intergenerational schemes are cross compared, with the aim of gaining a holistic understanding of the recent emergence of intergenerational living in London, focusing on the forms it can take, its design and development, and its’ future prospects. This research works towards a body of literature that promotes ways in which diversity can be encouraged in urban planning and offers inspiration in how this can be done. Furthermore, the topic bares great relevance to the debate sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic surrounding housing and healthcare, and especially that of older generations. Findings indicate that although becoming a more heavily debated topic, making frequent appearances in government policy and planning discourse, intergenerational living is still relatively niche in London. In order to transgress from niche to norm, a combined effort from stakeholders and a different approach to how we develop our cities is necessary.

Knowledge Transfer Partnership Award 2009 awarded to Paul Longley from the Camden Primary Care Trust at the UCL Enterprise Awards 2009.

Low employment statistics of adults with autism spectrum disorder in the UK, the low number of academic studies about supporting autistic library staff in Library and Information Studies academic literature and the indication within the relevant literature that autistic library staff may face barriers to receiving support because of the lack of understanding and negative stigma associated with autism, has prompted this investigation into whether libraries in the UK are providing effective support for autistic library staff. A mixed methods approach was employed to gather quantitative and qualitive data to represent the thoughts and opinions of autistic library staff about the support offered in their workplace. Two surveys were sent out to various library staff listservs, networks and social media groups and a few survey respondents were invited to take part in follow-up interviews which were provided in different formats. Results from both surveys and the interviews indicated that there were issues with disclosure, masking/hiding autistic traits, discrimination due to lack of understanding about autism by some line managers and staff, barriers to requesting reasonable adjustments at work and during job interviews, lack of provision of support services in UK libraries and the lack of provision of autism awareness training. Results have also positively indicated that some autistic library staff have certain traits and skills which enable them to carry out their library work. Although some of the participants have indicated that they have some level of support and face less discrimination in their workplaces, there is still more that can be done in UK libraries to support autistic library staff. Further recommendations are made about different types of support and providing special training for library managers and non-autistic staff to improve understanding about adjustments that autistic library staff may need. Further studies would be useful to understand about prevalence of autism in different sectors and understand the needs of staff working in different library sectors.

As cities have become superdiverse, urban planning must adapt to changes in the use of urban space. In Barking and Dagenham, rapid demographic change in the last two decades due to migration has fuelled community tensions and raised questions about how to ‘integrate’ new demographic groups. This dissertation provides a narrative led analysis of planning for new immigrant diversity in Barking and Dagenham, using seven in-depth-interviews as the primary dataset. This is supplemented by a range of secondary evidence, including policy documents. It finds that integration is not seen as an explicit planning concern by policy makers. However, the relationship between housing and the long-term integration of new immigrant communities is shown to be one of cyclical marginalisation, where the spatial imaginary of the borough is constructed upon binaries of ‘host’ visibility and immigrant invisibility, and in turn further reinforces these binaries through planning.