Alan Murie

The Geography of Council House Sales in England — 1979-85

Analyses of the social, economic and spatial consequences of council house sales have tended to rely on local case study evidence or limited official statistics at the national level. This paper seeks to provide more systematic evidence for England as a whole. Sales which were completed between 1979 and 1985 are mapped by local authority to indicate the uneven geography of the privatisation of council housing in England. Statistical analyses of key variables are then used to draw out some of the factors at work contributing to high and low levels of sales. One of the principle conclusions is that sale of council houses is leading to a greater unevenness in the national pattern of housing tenure.

Book reviews : Allen, J. and McDowell, L. 1989: Landlords and property: social relations in the private rented sector. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. viii + 209 pp. £25.00 cloth

This is an important study of private landlordism in London. Along with the recently published study by Hamnett and Randolph (1988), it provides the most substantial analysis available. It is based on a larger research enterprise than most of the other available studies and seeks to develop a fuller explanatory framework. The book starts with a review of the literature. While this could have drawn more