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Cityhas, from its inception, paid close attention to London, to the ‘World City’ or ‘Global City’ ideologies underwriting its concentration of wealth and of poverty and to challenges from among its citizens to the prevailing orthodoxy. This paper focuses on London's extreme experience of the housing crisis gripping the UK—itself the European nation with the fastest long-term growth of average house prices and widest regional disparities, both driven by overblown financialisation and the privileging of rent as a means of wealth accumulation, often by dispossession. Londoners’ experiences stem partly from four decades of neo-liberal transformation and partly from accelerated financialisation in the last two decades and are now being accelerated by the imposition of ‘austerity’ on low- and middle-income people. The social relationships of tenancy in social housing, private tenancy and mortgage-financed owner-occupation are, however, divisive and the paper ends by identifying what may be the beginning of a unified social movement, or at least a coalition, for change. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper builds upon Colin McFarlane's 2011 call inCityfor an ‘assemblage urbanism’ to supplement critical urbanism. It does so by mapping the spatio-political contours of London's 21st-century housing crisis through the geophilosophical framework of Deleuze and Guattari'sA Thousand Plateaus([1980] 2013, London: Bloomsbury] and Hardt and Negri's analysis of the metropolis inCommonwealth(2009, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). The paper examines the Focus E15 housing campaign based around a group of young mothers in the East London borough of Newham. In 2013, the mothers were living in the Focus E15 foyer supported housing unit for young people in Newham, but they were subsequently threatened with eviction as a result of welfare cuts. After successfully contesting the mothers’ own prospective expulsion from the city, the campaign shifted to the broader struggle for ‘social housing not social cleansing’. The paper draws upon participant observation at campaign events and interviews with key members. The Focus E15 campaign has engaged in a series of actions which form a distinctive way of undertaking housing politics in London, a politics that can be understood using a Deleuzoguattarian framework. Several campaign actions, including temporary occupations, are analysed. It is argued that these actions have created ‘smooth space’ in a manner which is to an extent distinctive from many other London housing campaigns which are rooted in a more sedentary defensive approach based around the protection of existing homes and communities—‘our place’. It is such spatio-political creativity—operating as a ‘nomadic war machine'—which has given rise to the high-profile reputation of the Focus E15 campaigners as inspirational young women who do not ‘know their place’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper argues that gaining an effective perspective on the London housing crisis requires an understanding of what is happening at the highest levels of the real estate market (£2 million+). It is based on data collected over two and a half years (2013–15) of research amongst the London elites through the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) project ‘Life in the Alpha Territories: London's “Super-Rich” Neighbourhoods’. It unpacks terms such as ‘foreign investor’ and frames the specificity of London as a global city, as well as using ethnographic and interview data to understand how actors who impact upon the city understand their role themselves. Distinctions are drawn between those who buy houses in Mayfair to shore up capital and middle-class Chinese investors, who buy flats to rent them out as investments. It differentiates between different types of ‘empty’ houses, and also considers the impact of ‘old’ elite families selling up and moving out who also purchase properties for their children in areas adjacent to traditional ‘elite’ hotspots, creating further ripples of gentrification, price rises and unaffordability. Eschewing the facile conflations of the populist press, this paper shows how capital flows into London, resulting in a mix of misplaced and mismatched investment—fuelling the building of the wrong types of units at the wrong price points. The paper also examines how the underuse of land deeply affects London well beyond its traditionally elite and ‘prime’ areas. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

London's housing crisis is rooted in a neo-liberal urban project to recommodify and financialise housing and land in a global city. But where exactly is the crisis heading? What future is being prepared for London's urban dwellers? How can we learn from other country and city contexts to usefully speculate about London's housing future? In this paper, we bring together recent evidence and insights from the rise of what we call ‘global corporate landlords’ (GCLs) in ‘post-crisis’ urban landscapes in North America and Europe to argue that London's housing crisis—and the policies and processes impelling and intervening in it—could represent a key moment in shaping the city's long-term housing future. We trace the variegated ways in which private equity firms and institutional investors have exploited distressed housing markets and the new profitable opportunities created by states and supra-national bodies in coming to the rescue of capitalism in the USA, Spain, Ireland and Greece in response to the global financial crisis of 2007–2008. We then apply that analysis to emerging developments in the political economy of London's housing system, arguing that despite having a very low presence in the London residential property market and facing major entry barriers, GCLs are starting to position themselves in preparation for potential entry points such as the new privatisation threat to public and social rented housing. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A few months ago I took part in a gloomy debate about the housing crisis with the celebrated modernist architect Kate Macintosh. All the speakers had referred despairingly to the demolition of dozens upon dozens of London's housing estates—the ‘London clearances’ written about so cogently by Simon Elmer and Geraldine Dening in this Special Feature. When Kate got up to speak she talked about her experience of designing South London's landmark Dawson's Heights in the 1960s and the success of recent community projects in bringing North London's once troubled Broadwater Farm Estate together. ‘Does she not know it's also under threat of demolition?’, I wondered to myself. It turns out she did, with her voice cracking as she continued, breaking down in tears at the thought of what the community now had to face, despite all their efforts. Then she composed herself and continued. But as she returned to her seat she was tripped up by a misplaced lead and fell, breaking her arm. It was an upsetting incident and felt to me like a disturbing metaphor for London's housing crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article we look at the origins of London's housing crisis and how it is being used to justify a policy of estate regeneration that is demolishing the homes of the communities they house. Our argument is that regeneration is the key mechanism in what we call the London Clearances, which is making London's local authority-owned land available for private investment and redevelopment. To expand this programme, the Conservative Government has announced its intention to recategorise existing council housing as brownfield land, a term used in planning to describe previously industrial or commercial land that has fallen into disuse. We trace the origins of this policy, from think-tank to mayoral platform to government legislation—most recently in the Housing and Planning Bill—and analyse its justifications in the twin narratives of austerity and densification. We examine how the economic forces of international finance is driving estate regeneration through Labour Councils, and situate this in the context of the wave of legislation passed by this Government to dismantle the welfare state. Faced with this programme for the social cleansing of London's working class communities and the catastrophic effects it will have on the city, the article concludes with a consideration of current and possible future forms of resistance by housing campaigners, including an outline of the principles underlining the authors' own response to what we argue is a politically legislated and economically driven ‘crisis’ in housing. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Housing history has been part of the mix of articles in The London Journal from its inception in 1975. The housing articles cover a wide period of London's history from early modern times to the contemporary city, and they track the major changes in historical method and sources that have become available over the last forty years. As has been noted by others, the contemporary has fallen out of the coverage, which is a pity since the housing debate in the capital has become more insistent, and it would seem that housing history has much to offer, not in the way of answers, but with strategies from the past for dealing with a perennial and intransigent problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Housing quality is an important component of the standard of living, touching on aspects usually ignored in efforts to measure it, in part because housing quality itself is difficult to measure—especially over time. There are choices over inputs versus outputs for quality, and over objectively versus subjectively determined evaluations of it. Historians must also cope with today's versus yesteryear's beliefs about housing quality and standards. Descriptions of London's housing quality over the seventeenth century and changes in rents show that housing improved across income groups. Housing poverty apparently declined in percentage but grew in absolute numbers. Higher incomes, better-built housing, and processes of the housing market all contributed, including housing/household “filtering”—a unique process of the housing market whose London aspects others have reported but never placed in a coherent account. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

During most of the seventeenth century, London's population steadily increased. Historians believe that London's population experienced an anomalous steep dip and subsequent steeper rise during and after the English Civil War. However, no severe plague was recorded, and the best estimate's methodology changed from calculating christenings to tabulating burials during the decade in question, thereby raising questions about its accuracy. The author uses an alternative method based on the implied changes in the housing stock to determine if the population estimates are accurate and links these changes to what is known about London's economy during this period. The result suggests (but cannot prove) that the dip was less steep than originally estimated and the rise likely occurred during a longer period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Residences located close to urban parks frequently sell at a premium. The increased home values represent a ‘capitalization’ of a park’s value to proximate homeowners and this phenomenon has been termed ‘the proximate principle’. The evolution of the principle from squares and gardens in small private estates to large park areas occurred with the development of Regent’s Park in London. The proximate principle’s dissemination into the new industrial cities of the UK first emerged at Prince’s Park in Liverpool, but it was still confined to private developments. Its transition into the public sector occurred with the development of Birkenhead Park. The data showing that Birkenhead Park was potentially a self-financing venture funded by the enhanced value of proximate profits were widely disseminated and provided the financial rationale for many subsequent urban parks in other UK cities. This principle was absorbed by Frederick Law Olmsted on two early visits to Birkenhead Park and incorporated into the design of Central Park in New York City, the first large urban park in the US. Olmsted meticulously documented the impact of Central Park on adjacent property values and demonstrated that the park made a ‘profit’. These data were crucial in verifying the legitimacy of the proximate principle and in providing the justification for large urban parks in a host of other US cities. Although these data are naïve when viewed through the lens of modern social science, recent studies using sophisticated techniques have confirmed the fundamental legitimacy of the proximate principle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the role of officer discretion and looks at the way that differing local institutional discourses of racial and ethnic difference affect the way that housing outcomes are produced. Examination of how and why black people in London, England lose out in the provision of social housing.