This book offers an accessible and in-depth account of housing provision and policy in the UK. The chapters describe each of the major housing tenures and how they have changed, emphasising the uneven development and implementation of housing policy over time and place. In doing so, the book builds on and adds to debates that are prominent in geography and social science disciplines and provides new perspectives on the origins and nature of owner occupation, housing in the welfare state, h...

Originally published in 1995, this innovative collection provides a multidisciplinary and cross-national perspective on the links between housing, personal wealth and the family in contemporary society. Reasserting the role of the family and informal networks in housing provision, it counteracts a tendency to view housing issues in the narrow terms of market and state provision.The contributions include analyses from the USA, Japan, Hong Kong, Greece, France, Sweden and Hungary, an...

In the 1970s it was widely recognised that our planners and administrators were dealing not with a homogenous housing market but with a complex of housing sectors and sub-markets – with different locations, physical and social characteristics, tenures and costs. But although factual information was widely available from the Census and other official sources, our understanding of the true nature of the British housing system – and the relationships at work within it – had remained inadequat...

Originally published in 1990 and drawing on extensive research, this book provides an evaluation of the impact of the growth of home ownership in the UK, and of the claims and counter-claims made for its social significance. The book examines critically the evidence for and against the proposition that mass home ownership is contributing towards a more equal society. Wide-ranging in its coverage, the book discusses the changing nature and role of home ownership, wealth accumulation and hou...

Originally published in 1988, this book offers the first comprehensive and critical analysis of the privatisation of public housing in Britain. It outlines the historical background to the growth of public housing and the developing political debatea surrounding its disposal. The main emphasis in the book, however, is on the ways in which privatisation in housing links to other key changes in British society. The long trend for British social housing to become a welfare housing sector is r...

The Right to Buy has had a massive impact on Housing in the UK for 35 years and in 2015 there were proposals to extend it. But what is the Right to Buy policy, how has it developed and what has its impact been? What evidence is there about the wider and unintended consequences of the policy? How are the proposals to extend the policy in England likely to affect future housing provision and what alternatives are there?In The Right to Buy, Alan Murie provides an authoritative account...

The changing nature and significance of housing provision within welfare states is considered in this timely book. With housing playing an increasingly important role in welfare provision, the new welfare state emerging in different parts of the world is being developed in the context of individual asset accumulation and the private ownership of housing. Housing and the New Welfare State shows that housing is becoming critical to asset-based welfare not only in Western Europe but also in t...

The book investigates the impact on the competitiveness of cities developing creative industries (arts, media, entertainment, creative business services, architects, publishers, designers) and knowledge-intensive industries (ICT, R&D, finance, law). It provides significant new knowledge to the theoretical and practical understanding of the conditions necessary to stimulate "creative knowledge" cities.The editors compare the socio-economic developments, experiences and strategies in...

The questions surrounding how the Irish economy was brought to the brink – who was to blame, and who should pay for these mistakes – have been rightly debated at length. But beyond this very legitimate exercise, there are deeper questions that need to be answered.These questions relate to why we made the decisions we did, not just in the last 10 years, but over the last 80. How did certain industries become prominent at the expense of others, banking as opposed to ...

In the two and a half years since the first edition appeared (April 2005), events have unfolded as predicted. Then the consensus among forecasters was that the boom in house prices would cool to an annual 2 or 3% rise over the following years. In fact, in keeping with the ‘winner’s curse’ phase of the cycle described by the author, prices rose by more than 10% per annum in Britain. Harrison’s first book, The Power in the Land, predicted the early 1990s recession. Boom Bust, warned that inv...

The poor standard of current housing, and the inability of too many people on low incomes to access decent housing, is causing a cascade of problems that are avoidable.Housing affordability. Unhealthy homes. Wealth inequality. Environmental sustainability. Social mobility. The state of New Zealand housing is central to many major issues confronting this country. In this wide-ranging BWB Text, leading international housing researcher Philippa Howden-Chapman reveals how New Zealand has lost ...

The book aims to give non-economists a detailed understanding of how macroeconomic policy works in modern economies, and the issues it faces. The world has recently been through a huge economic crisis and thinking people everywhere have reason to wonder whether something is not seriously wrong with the policy regimes underlying these dramatic events in the major economies, and whether changes should be made. The author reviews the history of the successive regimes tried and found wanting i...