The age of affluence revisited: Council estates and consumer society in Britain, 1950–1970

Abstract

Historians and sociologists have long had a fascination with the idea of the postwar British ‘affluent society’. Yet, up until now, most work in this area has been centred upon developments within the private and commercial sectors of the British economy. What this article shows is that rising levels of affluence, and the subsequent emergence of mass consumerism, also had quite profound effects upon the British public sector during the 1950s and 1960s. Using the public housing sector as the case study through which to explore these changes, this article shows how the increased emphasis upon consumer spending and consumer choice in this period not only resulted in heightened levels of consumption within the domestic sphere, but also fundamentally altered the shape and meaning of the council estate home.