The New Politics of Urban Housing

Abstract

The significant changes in housing policy in the UK over the last three decades have been widely described and discussed. Public housing has moved away from centre stage because of privatisation and the decline in new public sector building. In the last decade there has been a renewed concern to provide affordable housing, but policy has not reverted to the earlier model where the affordable-housing drive was led by local authorities and new towns. Instead, it has turned to the use of the planning system to deliver different kinds of affordable housing, and one consequence has been the advent of a different style and density of urban housing development. The authors address the change in housing provision from a perspective related to the politics of construction. They play off earlier work by Dunleavy, and contrast the new politics of urban housing with those described in the era prior to 1975. They draw on research on mixed-tenure developments and regional housing strategies in England, and suggest that there is a new technological and ideological shortcut which is affecting the pattern of housing in major urban areas. Although there are some profound differences from the era of mass housing, there are also some important similarities in the factors that underpin the new politics of urban housing. The authors discuss key issues and provide suggestions for future research.