The Role of Institutions in the Inner London Housing Market: The Case of Islington

Abstract

This paper attempts to relate the social structure of residential areas to aspects of the supply of property and finance. In particular, it is concerned with the role of building societies and estate agents in the process of gentrification in the London Borough of Islington. It is concluded that these institutions have had an important effect on the nature and rate of change in the Borough and that geographers must give more attention to matters of supply and control in the housing market. THE purpose of this paper' is to examine mechanisms of population change in an urban area by a study of the role of institutions functioning in the private sector of its housing market. Specifically, it concentrates upon the relationship between the process of gentrification2 and the role of institutions in the London Borough of Islington. A study of the gentrification process is a useful way to illustrate how the private housing market operates and the intention is to provide a counter to the viewpoint which sees consumer choice as being the fundamental mechanism of the housing market and of being the sole cause of gentrification.3 Although choice, which can be equated with demand, is clearly an important component, in both the market and in gentrifi-