Up in the Air tells the story of Britain’s multistorey council housing from its beginnings to the present day. Across the decades, the high rise has symbolised the welfare state for better or worse. Here, Holly Smith takes the residents’ perspective, capturing the human side of high-rise Britain. Interrogating the complex inheritance of mid-century urban reconstruction, Smith shows how these buildings became a crucible in which the welfare state was shaped and reimagined.

She examines the scattering of a local community during the construction of Park Hill in Sheffield in the 1950s. The outrage that followed the Ronan Point tower block collapse of 1968. The formation of a pioneering tenants’ co-operative in the 1970s to revive a crumbling estate during the closure of the London docks. The advocacy of a National Tower Blocks Network agitating for high-rise safety in the 1980s and ’90s. The excitement of early digital culture in a Liverpudlian pensioners’ high-rise internet television show in the 2000s and the fierce battle to defend estates from demolition in the 2010s.

Up in the Air is a rich history of political struggle within Britain’s most misunderstood buildings. It traces an unfinished battle for housing justice, offering essential lessons for the future of public housing.