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An introduction to the journal is presented which discusses various papers published within the issue, including one on a historical reinterpretation of housing policy in Great Britain, one on the influence of lobbyists in Australian housing policy processes, and another on the surge in international speculative housing investment in Australia.

Since the Global Financial Crash, there have been significant changes to the private rented sectors across the UK. The PRS has become increasingly important to providing housing to millions of homes and has gained increasing political and regulatory focus. At the same time, there has been a substantial increase in the number of short-term holiday lets enabled by online platforms such as Airbnb. There are concerns that this housing stock is being lost from residential housing and exacerbates issues of housing equality. This paper undertakes a case study of Airbnb growth in London to examine changes in listings and provides insight into Airbnb hosts. The extant literature and analysis in this paper support the argument of the loss of privately rented properties, with housing stock being reallocated as tourist accommodation, potentially displacing local communities. Finally, the paper analyses the struggles this poses for policymakers, communities and housing providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the social construction of house size expectations in two national panel datasets: German Socio Economic Panel Study (GSOEP) and the British Household Panel Study (BHPS). More specifically, it tests the aspiration spiral theory and positional good theory using data on housing/life satisfaction and house size judgements. In both countries, it finds substantial evidence that the current space expectations of individuals who have 'upsized' depends on the level of living space they experienced in the past year. For downsizers, however, the evidence in support of the aspiration spiral theory is weaker. In terms of the positional good theory, this paper finds no consistent evidence that an individual's space expectations are influenced by those around them. In both countries, the paper tests for two reference groups – the average level of living space in the region, and the mean size of the largest decile of houses in the region – and neither are found to be significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments' attempts to link the provision of welfare services to (more) responsible self-conduct of citizens (i.e. responsibilization) is seen as a distinctive feature of the post-welfare state. Responsibilization often requires welfare receivers to comply with specific duties or behavioural patterns (i.e. conditionality). Except for UK-based studies, little is known about responsibilization strategies of social housing tenants based on specific allocation policies or management approaches. To fill this gap, this paper examines recent cases of tenants' responsibilization through conditionality, i.e. allocation of housing on the condition that receivers regularly engage in supportive activities, in Utrecht (The Netherlands) and Milan (Italy). Through a qualitative methodology, this paper unpacks the use of conditionality as a means to increase tenants' responsibilization. The paper contributes by showing both innovative aspects, such as eligibility criteria, obligations, accountability measures, and potential pitfalls connected to diverging expectations between tenants and professionals, and to specific context-related factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantitative exploration of sub-groups of people experiencing homelessness facing similar challenges, or multiple exclusion homelessness (MEH), is limited in Great Britain—as is discussion of what these groupings mean for policy and practice. Through secondary analysis of survey data from a study of single people experiencing homelessness in England, Scotland, and Wales, this paper aims to advance understanding of MEH. Using Latent Class Analysis, we explore several possible typologies of MEH before outlining a preferred typology composed of four groups: those facing high exclusion; those faced with low levels of exclusion; and two intermediate groups, one marked by trauma and mental ill-health, the other by offending and substance dependencies. When compared to international studies on MEH, findings point toward possible common combinations of exclusion amongst people experiencing homelessness drawn from different populations. The emergent policy and practice implications of this analysis demonstrate the value of scrutinising homelessness policy and practice internationally through a lens of MEH. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online platforms have become central to the operation of the housing market in the UK and elsewhere. This paper extends recent scholarship on the impacts of 'the digital' on housing outcomes by assessing the 'performative' ability of property platforms to maintain and construct market practices. Using actor-network theory, a distinction is made between platforms as intermediaries that advertise properties and link different parties to a transaction and as mediators, capable of changing how the world is interpreted. Recognising platforms as intermediaries enables a classification of matchmaking types. Recognising platforms as mediators enables an assessment of the extent of their impact on tenure preferences and mobility and raises questions about the applicability of sharing economy concepts to housing. Actor-network theory allows a qualified and differentiated assessment of the varied impact of platforms, enabling a consideration of the factors that lead to continuity as well as those that promote change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper fills a gap in the literature surrounding the social and economic consequences of the rapid and widespread growth of home ownership in Great Britain. Hitherto, the debate has focused on the causes and consequences of the 'residualisation' of social rented housing. It has been characterised by economic conceptions of power influenced by Weberian and Marxist social theory. Foucault's work on power has made few inroads into this debate. Drawing upon a reading of Foucault's work, it is argued in this paper that home ownership has been subject to a process of normalisation , and that this is at least as important as widely rehearsed coerced exchange and social exclusion arguments in explaining the labelling of social rented housing estates. Evidence for the normalisation of home ownership is presented through an analysis of selected landmark policy documents and in data collected as part of an ethnographic study of home owners in Bristol undertaken in the early 1990s. The paper contends that the normalisation of one form of housing consumption has been instrumental in legitimising the residualisation of social rented housing and that if policies to encourage social balance and area based regeneration are to be successful then strategies to challenge the power relationships constituted by these discourses are crucial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of the 'residualisation' of social housing, in terms of residents' income, employment status and class relative to the rest of the population, is one of the best known trends of the housing system in the UK and in many other nations over the past half century. The idea of residualisation and the presumption of its inevitability have become widely accepted, and formed a negative frame for social housing policy. However Pearce and Vine (2014) have shown that in terms of income, the residualisation of social housing in England stopped in 1991. This paper confirms and extends that work using multiple published data sources. These show consistent evidence of convergence over the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s between social tenants and the English national averages in terms of not only income but also employment status and class. Potential explanations, including the restructuring of housing markets, demographic change, and changing labour markets, are briefly explored. Most recently, there some signs that deresidualisation itself may have stopped. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the extent and relevance of mortgage equity withdrawal (MEW) in the UK. MEW has, of late, been of most interest as a mechanism transmitting the wealth effects of housing into whole economies. Its implications for housing and social policy are less well documented. To redress the balance, the paper first offers a critique of data resources, before drawing from five substantial surveys to document the growing significance and changing style of MEW among British home buyers. The analysis focuses particularly on the under-explored question of what secured loans are spent on, identifying a trend away from reinvestment into housing, towards the consumption of other things. The study concludes by arguing that 'wealth effects' might usefully be recast as 'equity leakage' if the aim is to safeguard the quality of the stock and appreciate the limits to housing wealth as an asset base for welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the future role of social rented housing in England. It is based on an analysis of policy trends over the past 30 years, and a critical examination of current policy dilemmas. The central contention is that there are fundamental tensions underlying the present government's policy objectives to maintain the 'safety net' role of social housing but at the same time widen access to the sector so that it becomes a more mixed 'tenure of choice'. The paper charts the marked change of direction seen since 2000, with a switch from a highly rule-bound approach emphasising equity in housing allocations, to a more consumerist system stressing choice. Survey data and statistical returns are analysed to illustrate the changing mix of households entering social rented housing and to reveal the sector's varying role in regions characterised by contrasting housing market conditions. The paper charts the spread of the 'choice-based lettings' approach and discusses the possible implications of this development for the pattern of rehousing outcomes, and for the sector's broader role. It is concluded that, in higher demand regions such as London and the South, it remains very difficult to see how a social sector continuing to contract can widen its role from that of safety net for the most disadvantaged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1990 there has been extensive exploration of the meaning of housing affordability by members of the academic, professional and advocacy communities in Britain. These debates have revealed weaknesses in the traditional ratio standard of affordability and led to arguments in support of an alternative, residual income concept of affordability. However, so far there has been only limited success in operationalising and applying the residual income approach in the UK. In the US, by contrast, arguments in support of a residual income approach to housing affordability emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s, culminating in the formulation of operational standards utilising normative family budgets. This paper draws upon the US experience to formulate a residual income housing affordability standard for the UK that utilises the non-shelter components of the Family Budget Unit (FBU) ‘Low Cost but Acceptable’ budgets as the normative standard for minimum adequate residual income. The paper concludes by suggesting how use of such a ‘shelter’ poverty standard to assess housing affordability problems and needs in the UK might yield results that differ from those based on the ratio standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a theoretical paper which draws on the existing land planning and state failure literatures to underpin its key assumptions and to provide an appropriate context. Its main purpose is to consider the connection between capital markets and brownfield development. The paper begins with a summary of the various explanations put forward for why the private sector appears reluctant to build on brownfield, and offers a previously overlooked possible cause: the impact of asymmetric information on credit markets for residential construction. The paper then moves on to its main focus by considering state failures in the allocation of land and the likely impact of information problems on the success of fiscal measures to encourage brownfield development. As a result, a new form of possible state failure in land use intervention is identified that arises out of the link between fiscal policy and the financial market treatment of brownfield sites. This insight adds to the broader category of research that considers state failures in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK's ageing population has generated contradictory policy responses. On the one hand, facing the lack of specialist housing for the elderly, older people are incentivised to 'age in place'; on the other, to move to smaller homes to free-up family housing, reducing pressure on housing supply. This 'downsizing' discourse is presented as a 'win-win' situation which benefits older people and the rest of society. However, a survey and interviews conducted with over 55 s in England reveals more nuanced patterns of residential moves, behaviours and aspirations than suggested by 'downsizing'. Only a minority of older households choose to downsize. This paper looks into this mismatch between observed housing choices and the construction of downsizing as a policy goal. It suggests that theoretically speaking, the very notion of downsizing is problematic and difficult to define and is an over-simplistic concept which in reality applies to a heterogeneous group of people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that understanding of the performance and price structure of urban housing markets in the UK would be enhanced by limited investment in comprehensive systems for collecting data on housing transactions. These data would allow the construction of reliable and accurate indices at different levels of spatial aggregation. The empirical part of the paper uses data from the Western Australian Valuer General's Office to illustrate the data requirements and practical considerations in the construction of indices. The dataset provides comprehensive information on property attributes and the sales history of individual transactions and allows a comparison of the accuracy of a number of variants on the hedonic and repeat-sales index methods. The evidence suggests repeat-sales indices can be constructed on less detailed data with little loss of accuracy. The paper concludes by suggesting that repeat-sales methods, although largely ignored in the UK to date, lend themselves well to the development of a system of local price indices using the information recorded by the Land Registry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the dynamic interrelationship between demographic change and housing systems and the implications for assessing future housing need, including a review of the literature on demography and housing and a case study of Northern Ireland. The main research method is historical analysis of census and other data relating to changing population structures and the housing system in Northern Ireland between 1981 and 2011. These changes are compared to developments in Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland over the same period. The paper identifies a long period of broadly consistent relations between demographic and housing system trends between 1981 and 2001, followed by significant changes in demographic trends and a turbulent housing system undergoing rapid change between 2001 and 2011. Our conclusions include consideration of the implications of this study for future analyses of the relationships between demographic change and housing systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes insights into the role of tenure in modifying the relationship between housing affordability and health, using a cross-national comparison of similar post-industrial nations—Australia and the United Kingdom—with different tenure structures. The paper utilises longitudinal data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey and British Household Panel Survey to examine change in the mental health of individuals associated with housing becoming unaffordable and considers modification by tenure. We present evidence that the role of tenure in the relationship between housing and health is context dependent and should not be unthinkingly generalised across nations. These findings suggest that the UK housing context offers a greater level of protection to tenants living in unaffordable housing when compared with Australia, and this finds expression in the mental health of the two populations. We conclude that Australian governments could improve the mental health of their economically vulnerable populations through more supportive housing policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to show how Van Wel's theory of problem figuration, Carlen's concept of imaginary systems and Zizek's notion of cynical ideology may advance our theoretical and empirical understanding of the contemporary construction of housing policy narratives and embedded localised housing practise. Applying this theoretical framework to a case study of responses to homelessness in Scotland and further illustrative examples from the UK and the USA, the paper examines how housing practise is constituted through different imaginaries of housing systems. These are based on fictional as well as rational elements, located within a form of cynical ideology whereby actors act ‘as if’ the realities of the present housing crisis are distanced from the imagined intended functioning of housing systems. This masks alternative social realities and denies an explicitly articulated politics of housing which would reveal new processes of capitalism, generational and class realignments and a reframing of the role of government itself. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper provides a commentary on the contemporary housing crisis in England and links it to broader questions of role of housing in capitalist economies and societies. It starts with the assumptions that housing and community development issues are linked to the wider housing market and that the housing crisis is not new but has long-run antecedents. The paper begins by reviewing the contemporary terrain of housing markets and policies in the UK. It then discusses several aspects of ‘crisis’: market volatility, rates of new supply, affordability, state welfare subsidies and socio-spatial inequalities. Policy responses to these are examined through a discussion of efforts to expand the role of the private rented sector, sell-off ‘expensive’ public housing and curtail market renewal investments. The paper concludes that current conceptualisations of the value of housing are often partial and insufficiently integrative and that policies must explicitly recognise housing as a social and economic asset. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract Abandonment of property in all housing tenures is a problem in some British inner cities, especially in the north of England. The paper outlines the causes of this phenomenon and describes some of the social problems that arise in areas containing significant quantities of abandoned property. A principal underlying cause of abandonment is low demand creating, initially, voids and vacancies in the dwelling stock and ultimately housing abandonment. The paper considers the relationship between empty stock and abandonment particularly in the social housing sector. It reviews the US and UK literature and concludes that the UK literature and research agenda is deficient in its analysis of the problem of abandonment. The paper then explores evidence of the source of the abandonment problem in the low demand for housing in some parts of the country, particularly those affected by industrial collapse. Abandonment is also explained as a case of policy failure particularly due to the housing subsidy system and the conflicting interests of central and local government. Finally, the social consequences for communities afflicted by low demand and abandonment are explored and evidence is presented of the severe impact on neighbourhood stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial support from parents has become critical to the capacity of many single young adults to attain and sustain independent housing in the United Kingdom. Utilising data from a qualitative study of early housing pathways, this paper applies Lüscher’s theory of ambivalence in a context previously unexplored via this framework, analysing how participants talked about competing claims between siblings for finite parental resources in support of independent living. Most expressed faith in the assumed fairness of parental behaviours in providing support whilst often constructing themselves as ‘more responsible’ or ‘more deserving’ than their siblings. Whilst parental support was routinely made available regardless of recipients’ current housing tenure, there was nonetheless a sense that support for owner occupation fell into a distinct category of assistance, reinforcing notions of tenure prejudice. Given ongoing dependency on family support, participants were largely resigned to these disparities, regarding them as integral to the ambivalent nature of inter- and intragenerational family relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, a number of welfare reforms have been introduced in the UK by Conservative-led governments. The most high profile of these is Universal Credit (UC), which is currently being rolled out across the country. A key feature of UC is a change in the way the income-related housing allowance for social housing tenants (Housing Benefit) is administered, as under UC, it is paid directly to tenants (direct payment), who are responsible for paying their rent. This represents a step change for them as for more than 30 years landlord payment has been the norm in the UK. There has been little research into direct payment. This paper seeks to address this gap in knowledge by presenting the key findings of an initiative designed to trial direct payment. It finds that many tenants experienced difficulties on direct payment. Reflecting this, landlords' arrears rose markedly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Housing subsidies are used by developed welfare states to ensure their citizens can access decent and affordable housing. This paper assesses the relative importance of individual and area level factors on the degree to which private sector landlords were affected by changes to Local Housing Allowance (LHA) in the UK. The changes were part of the government's package of measures to reform LHA and reduce the welfare benefit bill. Multi-level modelling techniques have been applied to a longitudinal survey of 788 private sector landlords who had LHA tenants in 19 Local Authorities across GB. The analysis shows that whilst landlords were affected by reforms, area effects were not as pronounced as anticipated. In general, landlords were equally affected regardless of where they operate. The findings suggest tenants in the most affected areas have absorbed increases in their rent shortfall signifying income was not the overriding determinant of demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Planning for housing in Britain has embraced the use of housing market areas (HMAs) as appropriate geographies to address calls for greater market responsiveness. Tenure is a crucial dimension of the housing market, so it must be central to assessing local housing demands. Despite the wide cleavages between social and private rented sectors, and between both of these sectors and the owner-occupying majority, the geography of tenure-specific HMAs has remained largely unexplored. This paper assesses the importance of tenure-specific HMAs for housing planning within the current policy frameworks aimed at meeting housing needs. The paper then reports analyses to delineate tenure-specific HMAs, with these boundaries then compared with HMAs defined by analysing the whole market. The case for a national system of tenure-specific HMAs based on migration is found to be unproven. Nevertheless, such HMAs can provide the basis for meaningful affordability measures and a tool to address segregation and reshape housing markets in cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK has been engaged in an ongoing process of constitutional reform since the late 1990s, when devolved administrations were established in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. As devolution has evolved there has been a greater trend towards divergence in housing policy, which calls into question any notion of a ‘UK experience’. Whilst the 2014 Scottish independence referendum again returned constitutional reform high onto the political agenda, there still remain tensions between devolved governments and the UK Government in Westminster, with England increasingly becoming the outlier in policy terms. Informed by ideas of social constructionism, which emphasises the politics of housing, this paper draws on an analysis of policy narratives to highlight the need for greater geographical sensitivity. This requires not only more spatial nuance, but also a recognition that these differences are underpinned by divergent political narratives in different parts of the UK. This emphasis on the politics underpinning policy has relevance internationally in other geographical contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper re-considers the arguments for reforming housing taxation in the UK on the basis of a review of evidence on the macro- and micro-economic effects of homeownership. The paper then examines the political economy of feasible tax reform. This currently involves a context of extreme fiscal pressure and a political system wedded to the housing tax status quo. The paper concludes by suggesting elements of a strategy to progress a much-needed debate on taxation that is consistent with but goes beyond arguments recently made by Shelter and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation Housing Market Task Force. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper aims to investigate the premise that community land trusts (CLTs) offer a method of delivering affordable housing that empowers local communities and provides democratic management of community assets. The paper provides a comparative analysis of CLT developments in England, Scotland and the USA, reviewing the policy and literature to identify two key approaches that underpin CLTs: an approach to property development that emphasises resale restrictions used to preserve housing use for the CLT's target clientele, and an approach to citizen governance that privileges local communities. The paper identifies a variation of practices that underpin the operation of CLTs in each country and uses the advanced developments in Scotland and the USA to illustrate some of the challenges that remain if the CLT sector in England is to continue its recent growth. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The impacts of the global financial crisis continue to reverberate around the world. This paper explores its impacts in the UK in general and England in particular in relation to the housing market and housing policy. It examines the underlying trends which were already in place before the financial crisis and the impact of the crisis and the government's policy responses on the housing and mortgage markets. The paper argues that the crisis mainly exacerbated already long established tensions while the current policy solutions have ameliorated, but not fully, resolved these pressures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a theoretical discussion of the price elasticity of supply. While there have been a number of attempts to estimate the responsiveness of UK supply, relatively little has been written on what determines it. A key omission is the effect of long-term real interest rates. Steep falls in both the annual rent to house price ratio and long real interest rates during a period of relatively static real rents in the UK suggest that the stream of future imputed rents became discounted at successively lower interest rates between 1996 and 2007. New supply responded sluggishly to price rises during this period, but then collapsed rapidly as the market turned in 2008. This paper argues that the decline in long-term real interest rates contributed to rising house prices and the inelastic supply response during the long upswing, and that cyclical asymmetries inherent in the supply response have been exacerbated by changes in the financial system and increased government regulation of the planning process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the idea that some urban areas in the UK are crystallising around new poles of racial and religious segregation, manifested in ghettos and secessionary spaces. The paper suggests the need to rethink the theoretical conceptualisation of the links between ethnicity, culture, housing processes and dynamics of urban segregation. It argues that the work of Bourdieu, Elias and Weber provides a historically-grounded framework for exploring culture, conduct and residence and illustrates this by sketching the relationship between religion and housing. The paper then explores the paradigms of ghettos and secessionary urban spaces and applies Diken's and Alsayyad & Roy's conceptualisations of the camp as a site of exception to critique the notion of the non-antagonistic city and to suggest that the aim of urban policy should be the facilitation of civility between diverse populations rather than an overly ambitious, ahistorical and assimilationist project of 'community' cohesion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically examines an observed shift towards a 'post-welfare' society, in which the home-as-investment is replacing by stealth the former protection of more comprehensive welfare state provision. Comparing Britain with the USA, the paper draws on biographies and resource inventories for a sample of 100 working families from five high-cost cities (London, Edinburgh, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland). Micro-market practices from this sample are presented in the form of vignettes to highlight the complex ways that housing consumption (such as use of a spare room) intersect with financial assets of the home (equity withdrawn to spend on family care). While some of these reported practices could be adopted by tenants as well as owner occupiers, the suggestion is that buying a first home and climbing the housing ladder (however risky in terms of mortgage finance) now assumes the imperative of future welfare provision. By exposing the multiple ways in which households 'spend' their housing assets on needs as well as wants, this paper points to the hidden costs for individual households (in time, money, discomfort, anxiety and ill-health) of a housing-led privatisation of welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sets out to review to what extent policies aimed at improving the quality of 'council-built' neighbourhoods achieved their objectives in the period 1975-2000, and the relevance of the experience for current policy. It discusses the main approaches to and diagnoses of problem estates, including the failure of the welfare state, the absence of enterprise, the failure of housing management, 'housing is not enough' and 'effort fragmentation', and provides an evaluation of the impacts of the main programmes, based mainly on the results of official evaluations. The paper notes the difficulties in making assessments of impacts in this area due to data shortcomings, but concludes that over 20 years of policies and programmes did not resolve the complex problems of these estates, nor reposition council-built estates from the bottom of the residential hierarchy. It suggests the reason for this failure was partly that the macro-economic climate and other government policies were countervailing, but also that policy lacked both clear goals and a good understanding of the problems to be faced. It also notes that housing improvements were often compromised by the failure to deal with wider problems. The paper argues that recent policy shows more promise, and seeks to better integrate mainstream spending programmes with area initiatives, although there is little evidence yet on how this is really working. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past 30 years the housing system in England (and the rest of the UK) has undergone fundamental changes. This Special Issue of Housing Studies is based upon a major recent evaluation of English housing policy 1975-2000. This introductory paper outlines the aims and objectives of the evaluation, and its principal conclusions. It also sketches out the broader social and economic context for the evaluation, and provides a brief introduction to the substantive papers included in the Special Issue. These papers were selected to reflect the breadth of topics considered in the evaluation, and to represent the key housing policy debates and dilemmas that have contemporary resonance as well as historical significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social housing policy in the UK mirrors wider processes associated with shifts in broad welfare regimes. Social housing has moved from dominance by state housing provision to the funding of new investment through voluntary sector housing associations to what is now a greater focus on the regulation and private financing of these not-for-profit bodies. If these trends run their course, we are likely to see a range of not-for-profit bodies providing non-market housing in a highly regulated quasi-market. This paper examines these issues through the lens of new institutional economics, which it is believed can provide important insights into the fundamental contractual and regulatory relationships that are coming to dominate social housing from the perspective of the key actors in the sector (not-for-profit housing organisations, their tenants, private lenders and the regulatory state). The paper draws on evidence recently collected from a study evaluating more than 100 stock transfer organisations that inherited ex-public housing in Scotland, including 12 detailed case studies. The paper concludes that social housing stakeholders need to be aware of the risks (and their management) faced across the sector and that the state needs to have clear objectives for social housing and coherent policy instruments to achieve those ends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the use and abuse of historical method in the field of housing studies, with specific reference to predictions about the future shape of social housing in Britain. It reflects on the debates about council housing in the early 1990s and sets these against subsequent policy developments. The paper suggests that this exercise reveals some shortcomings in dominant paradigms within housing studies, such as the misreading and misrepresentation of tenants' responses and reactions; the over-emphasis on consumption in assessing processes of housing sector change; the neglect of increasing spatial differentiation in housing markets across Britain; and the failure to appreciate the causes behind increasing volatility in some local housing markets. The paper argues for a more nuanced historical sensibility and a more adventurous methodology when forecasting the future direction of housing policies and the future characteristics of housing systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gypsies and Travellers are increasingly part of a debate by politicians and the media in the UK. This discourse is not a benign reflection of events; instead it is part of a complex mechanism of control. There is a difficult relationship between the settled and travelling communities which inhibits political discussion of a strategy for site provision. In this context, the paper examines the links between discourse and control, by paying attention to Foucaultian notions of the ‘gaze’, amongst other explanations. Drawing on findings from analysis of the media, focus groups with Travellers and a case study in one local authority planning consultation exercise, the paper proposes a theoretical explanation for the link between the discourse used around Gypsies and Travellers and the control that is exercised over them, particularly in inhibiting their right to a travelling lifestyle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The measures that New Labour have introduced to punish and prevent anti-social behaviour need to be discussed in the context of the broader debate about conditionality in welfare. This paper outlines briefly three arguments that have been put forward to justify conditionality in welfare, the contractualist, the paternalist and the mutualist justifications. It then considers the force of these arguments in respect of New Labour's approach to anti-social tenants. The paper concludes that it is possible to formulate a powerful case for the kinds of measures that New Labour is currently taking by integrating elements of the three justifications. It is argued that it is a mistake to view such measures as necessarily disciplinary in intent or in effect. Measures to enforce the obligations that people owe to each other are not incompatible with policies to widen opportunities for self-fulfilment and to reduce social exclusion. On the contrary, they can be seen as two sides of the same coin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Writers influenced by Foucault's work on governmentality have characterised emerging forms of governance in advanced liberal democracies as being based upon 'technologies of the self in which power works through the self-regulation of subjects within constructed norms of responsible and ethical conduct. This 'politics of behaviour' has been particularly prominent in UK housing policy debates in relation to anti-social behaviour, benefit reform and tenant participation. This paper argues that recent reforms are premised upon the identification of the responsible (and responsive) tenant as a central organising mechanism in new processes of housing governance. Although tenant responsibility is not a new concept, the paper argues that the nature and scope of this responsibility is currently being broadened and deepened, and discusses how this reconfiguration of responsibility reflects a wider realignment of governing identities within housing policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing in particular on Nikolas Rose's writings on governmentality, this paper considers how housing associations' objective of creating and maintaining communities has structured both their own practices, and their relationships with local authorities. Using historical materials from the 1930s to the present, it argues that the discourse of community has now become a focus for asserting the independence of the housing association sector from control by the state. It begins by examining the period from the 1930s to 1960, when the marginal role of housing associations left them relatively free to define their own concepts of 'community', though with some contestation around the power of local authorities to nominate tenants. It then examines the 1960s and 1970s, when the increasing importance of the association sector in inner city renewal began a shift of emphasis towards providing housing on the basis of need. The paper moves on to consider the impact of rising homelessness in the 1980s, which led to the problematisation of housing association activity. The 1993 Page Report focused associations on their dependence on local authority definitions of housing need. It produced a 'paradigm shift' in the sector. Associations sought independence from local authority perceptions of housing need, moving towards policies of building communities that offered security to associations, lenders and occupiers [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the evidence concerning the performance of landlords within and between the two social housing sectors in Great Britain. It considers both the measured performance of landlords in the two sectors and the factors that appear to influence that performance. In doing so it discusses some of the broad issues involved in performance measurement in social housing before reviewing some of the previous work in the field that throws light on the factors that might be expected to influence landlords' effectiveness in the delivery of social housing services. The results of a limited empirical exercise that attempts to explain differences in measured performance of social landlords in England are then presented and interpreted. The paper concludes by reflecting on the implications of performance and of current approaches to performance measurement for social landlords. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth in the provision of gardens has been an important feature of housing in the UK during the 20th century, and yet the significance of the humble domestic garden has been neglected in studies of housing and home. This paper examines the role of the garden in the meaning of home, and draws on theoretical discussions of nature, environmental risk and social uncertainty in late modernity. Secondary empirical data is used to investigate the changing uses of gardens and practices of gardening. A survey of garden owners provides primary empirical data to examine meanings of gardens and personal experiences of nature. The paper concludes that the garden is an important site for privacy, sociability and sensual connections to nature, and these activities can be understood as negotiations and practices to address the social and environmental paradoxes of late modern life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an analysis of the reputation of estate agents within the context of principal-agent theory. It is argued that the poor reputation of many agents arises from a combination of product and market characteristics including product intangibility and heterogeneity, joint production by vendor and agent, infrequent purchasing, low barriers to entry and environmental uncertainty. Various solutions to the problem are discussed including certification, contingent contracts and reputationbuilding. An empirical analysis based on a recent survey of estate agents suggests that a link between reputation and the form of contract signed may help to reduce the problems in the market. The paper concludes with a discussion of policy options for the improved regulation of the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A constructionist approach to the study of social problems and housing policy provides a theoretically informed means of analysing the ways in which housing policy is formulated and implemented. Yet despite a strong commitment by housing researchers to policy relevance, constructionist studies of how specific social problems are generated and deployed have so far made only a limited impact on housing research. The paper addresses this lacuna by first discussing important literature and the key conceptual issues in this field of study. This is followed by a discussion of two examples from recent UK housing policy (the shift in the 1980s from defining lone mothers as the victims of housing shortages to a morally questionable group subverting needs-based allocation policies and the re-emergence of anti-social behaviour as a problem on housing estates). The paper's conclusion is that the 'construction of problems' provides a rich source of new material as well as offering significant opportunities to develop a more critically informed housing research agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers access to social housing in England, Scotland and Wales. After putting Britain's social housing in context, it sets out the current legislative and policy context for access to social housing in the three countries, detailing key differences in approach and emphasis. It goes on to consider the establishment of choice-based lettings systems and the extent to which the various government departments are taking the lead in promoting their development. The paper concludes that the emphasis on choice, in particular on advertising-based methods of letting properties differs greatly across the UK, with a continuum, England, Wales, Scotland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares recent experience in the use of the planning system to facilitate the provision of affordable housing in rural areas of Scotland and England. Following an introduction summarising key issues arising from the relevant literature, the paper first sets out the scale of need for rural affordable housing in the two countries and then summarises the differing planning policy frameworks. Scale of delivery is then addressed and an attempt is made to establish the extent to which differences in performance reflect variations in policy, delivery mechanisms or differing housing markets. The hypothesis is advanced that Scotland, although a more rural country, has made less use of planning policy to tackle issues relating to the need for rural social housing. In both countries scale of provision has lagged behind perceived need and a major reason for this would appear to be the tensions in planning policy between environmental and social sustainability objectives, with the scales so far weighted towards the environmental rather than the social imperative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current policy and discourse concerning the governance of anti-social behaviour in the UK has emphasised the spatial concentration of disorder on particular social housing estates. Policy has sought to respond by devolving management of the processes of social control to local neighbourhoods. Local authorities, and social housing agencies in particular, are being given an increasing role within multi-agency partnerships aimed at governing local incidences of anti-social behaviour. This paper places this emerging role for social housing agencies within theories of governmentality and wider trends in urban governance and suggests that present developments may be understood through a paradigm of housing governance. Drawing on studies in Edinburgh and Glasgow, the paper examines the role of social housing agencies in the governance of anti-social behaviour. It argues that social housing agencies face a number of dilemmas in reacting to their emerging role and that such dilemmas reflect wider concerns about the new urban governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on intra-ethnic differentiation, rather than inter-ethnic differentiation, which has been a characteristic concern of research on minority ethnic housing. Pakistani housing disadvantage in the UK is complex, in that housing disadvantage is part of a wider pattern. Responding to the tendency in housing research to consider housing issues in a wider context, this paper argues that ethnicity, gender, locality and class have been shown by international researchers to be key factors of intra-ethnic differentiation. The operation of these factors is explored qualitatively using empirical data on housing careers of UK Pakistanis. The discussion demonstrates that these housing careers are markedly differentiated by ethnicity, gender, locality and class, which affect peoples' housing decisions and strategies in various ways. The paper concludes that more effective explanations of persistent housing disadvantage, which can inform more effective policy, are produced by a holistic perspective on housing careers, which explores intra-ethnic differentiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renting privately is a minority tenure in the UK, but the sector is recognised as being essential to the smooth operation of the wider housing market. The need to target policy effectively has led to an increasing stress on the importance of understanding how local private rental markets operate. Using a number of local case study areas from throughout the country, this paper explores the nature of demand for private rented housing from students. This niche market is a substantial and growing feature of the private rented sector. The paper demonstrates that although student demand shares a number of common characteristics throughout the UK, its localised impacts can vary. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are required to gain an understanding of how student demand affects all aspects of the local housing market, and it is concluded that greater attention needs to be paid to exploring ways of understanding the dynamics of rental market development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the results of a review of the housing content of UK General Election 2001 manifestos. Housing policy was of little importance during the election campaign. The main British political parties had, essentially, a shared housing agenda—to promote and facilitate home ownership, support area and community regeneration, tackle homelessness, improve the private rented sector, and prevent building on greenfield sites. Many issues of importance to housing specialists received little or no attention, most notably that of low demand. Some policy variations within the UK were evident, for example in attitudes towards greenfield development, home ownership and stock transfer. The paper concludes that differences in housing policy are emerging within the UK as part of a new politics of devolution and that the days of a single housing policy approach for the UK are over. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Begging is one of the most potent, and controversial, symbols of social exclusion in modern British society. This paper concentrates on the relationship between begging and rough sleeping. This focus was selected because moral debates concerning the 'legitimacy' of begging now seem inextricably bound up with the perceived accommo dation status of people begging as either 'roofless' or 'housed'. The paper draws upon a recent qualitative study in Glasgow and Edinburgh city centres which demonstrated a close relationship between begging and rough sleeping, and the complex needs and desperate circumstances of the people engaged in these activities. It challenges prevailing assumptions regarding the 'legitimacy' of begging arguing that, while begging appears to be largely confined to street homeless people in Glasgow and Edinburgh city centres, this does not undermine the moral imperative to meet the needs of the 'housed poor' who may beg elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of growing risks and expectations of greater personal responsibility, this paper presents the results of a study of the effectiveness and implications of the new pattern of safety-net provision for mortgagors in Britain which was implemented in October 1995 and which involves both private insurance (MPPI) and public provision (ISMI). The paper focuses primarily on those borrowers most likely to experience the risks associated with home ownership and least financially able to respond to them. For these low-income borrowers, access to, and the effectiveness of, social protection is critical. The data presented are drawn from two surveys of mortgagors, one of private insurance claimants and the other of those claiming on the state safety-net. The discussion indicates that the nature of the 'new' safety-net provision in Britain is problematic. Low-income borrowers are currently least likely to take or have access to MPPI. Where they do have MPPI, they are relatively less successful than better off borrowers in sustaining a claim. For those without MPPI, the deferral period before receiving state assistance (ISMI), and the restrictions to the assistance when it is paid, result in a large minority developing mortgage arrears. The state safety-net is shown to be less effective now than it was in the mid-1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]