Michael Harloe

Rhetorical barriers to understanding housing provision: What the ‘provision thesis’ is and is not

Abstract This paper reviews some recent critiques of the concept of ‘structures of housing provision’ (SHP) and attempts to clarify the nature and status of this concept. It argues that SHP is not a ‘theory of housing’, nor does it imply a production‐centred approach to housing analysis. Rather, SHP is a metatheoretical concept or analytical framework which, together with other theories, may be of use in the examination of particular aspects of housing development.

Comparative Housing Research

The paper reviews major examples of comparative housing research which have been published in the last twenty years and suggests that the dominant approach — grounded in pluralism and convergence theory — which they exhibit is inadequate. Future studies need to be both more detailed and wider in scope, examining the dynamic of the interrelations between the institutions and the social forces involved in the provision of housing. Such a perspective is briefly developed and related to current developments in the housing markets and policies of some advanced capitalist societies. The paper concludes with a discussion of some of the practical problems of cross-national housing research. This paper discusses the state of cross-national comparative housing research, focusing on Western Europe and the USA. Research into housing in Third World countries is characterized by some of the same theoretical perspectives discussed in this paper and there are even closer parallels between conditions in countries such as Australia and even Japan and those in Western Europe and the USA. But our own comparative housing research has concentrated on these latter countries and so it is mainly to these that we shall refer. We shall have several criticisms to make of international housing studies, including their over-emphasis on policy analysis and relative lack of attention to housing market processes and their inadequate theoretical foundations; Nevertheless, we believe that comparative studies are of considerable intellectual and practical value, for example, in helping us to understand the current and future directions that housing markets and policies are moving in. We shall then consider some key issues for future comparative research; * This paper is a revised version of a paper originally delivered at a conference on housing research, sponsored by the Environment and Planning Committee of the Economic and Social Research Council held in Bristol in September 1983. We are grateful for the helpful comments made on this draft by Steve Merrett, David Donnison. Michael Ball and anonymous referees. t Director, Institute for Urban Studies, University of Essex.

Private Rented Housing: Its Current Role

Senior Research Officer, Department of Sociology, University of Essex.

Social housing—past, present and future

In this article, the first of two, the recent developments and current situation in the private rented sector are examined. Four roles for the sector are identified: housing those who traditionally lived in the sector, housing the young and mobile, providing accommodation with employment and acting as a tenure of last resort for those unable to find accommodation in the majority tenures. The types of household to be found in each sub-sector are described and their reasons for being in the sector and what they obtain are analysed. Different types of landlord are identified and their reasons for letting examined. The problems encountered by tenants and landlords in each sub-sector are described, leading to the conclusion that the private rented sector urgently requires considered and effective attention from policy makers.

Housing inequality and social structure in London

Abstract Over the past decade in Western Europe there has been a growth of unmet low‐income housing needs. There are now as many as 3–5 million homeless people in the EC countries and many more who are paying more than they can afford for poor quality accommodation (Quilliot, 1992, p. 12). In the 1970s it seemed as if the acute post‐war shortages of low‐income housing had finally been overcome and mass programmes of social rented housing had played a key role in bringing this about. In addition, rising prosperity had opened up private market housing opportunities for broad sections of the population. However, the profound economic, social and political changes since the mid‐1970s have destroyed this optimistic scenario. Now we face, on the one hand, the re‐emergence of a large scale problem of housing availability and affordability and, on the other hand, the reluctance or inability of most governments and societies to respond to this problem. In particular, no government now seems likely to support large...

The Affluent Society Revisited

Abstract This paper analyses the housing circumstances of Londoners in relation to their social characteristics, drawing on the 1986–87 Survey of Londoners’ Living Standards and referring to other recent data. It examines the recent claim that there is no inner‐city housing problem, using small‐area data. It concludes that problems of affordability and poor housing affect a wide range of the population, not just the poor.

Book reviews : Knox, P.L. and Taylor, P.J., editors, 1995: World cities in a world-system. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. xii + 340 pp. £40.00 cloth, £16.95 paper. ISBN: 0 521 48165 1; 0 521 48470 7

life be able to override the duty to work, when there is a clash between the two? And should the “work ethic” be restricted to participation in the labour market or should it be construed more widely to include unpaid work such as child care and voluntary work of various kinds? On the other hand, to what extent should the nature of work be changed so that it becomes more suitable for disabled people to do? These are all difficult questions and there is no general agreement on the answers. But they do suggest that it may be wise to adopt a more cautious and more openminded approach to the activation of disabled people than is currently happening in a number of countries. At its crudest, a disabled person may be able to work a certain number of hours per week, but to compel them to work those hours may be counterproductive both for the employer (who has to put in more time to deal with a worker who may also, because of their impairments, be under-performing in comparison with other workers) and for the disabled person themselves (who may suffer a number of adverse effects from the experience). The reality is that most workplaces are just not “disability-friendly”, and activation workers have to take account of this in coming to their decisions.

Review article : Housing and Social Policy David Clapham, Peter Kemp and Susan J. Smith Macmillan, Basingstoke and London, 1990, 274pp, £35.00, hbk, £9.99, pbk

way can we relate individuals to their structural context. It is a challenging task, and the book largely succeeds, although it is not an easy read. Too few of the chapters make systematic use of the biographical-longitudinal approach which is currently gaining attention, and which permits the ’reality’ of migrants’ experiences to be reconstructed. Neither do all chapters provide sufficient exposition of their methodologies. However, for me its real strength lies in the depth of the regionally based studies, which make great demands on archival sources and computing capabilities. This is especially in evidence in the

Book Reviews : Landlords and Property: Social relations in the private rented sector John Allen and Linda McDowell Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989, 209 pp, £25.00 hbk:

ween housing policy and more general issues relating to social policy and the welfare state. It is targetted at the student/practitioner market and should provide a useful addition to undergraduate and professional course reading lists, although more for the chapters on substantive areas of housing policy than for its authors’ broader theoretical ambitions. As the authors note in their introduction, housing policy tends to be regarded as a semi-detached annexe to social policy. This is reflected in the literature, as few social policy texts pay more than cursory attention to hous-

The People's Home? Social Rented Housing in Europe and America.

black people into their demands, there is a need to recognise the validity and importance of autonomous organisations for women and hlack groups, their own history and struggles. Only then can it be possible to bring race and gender into ’the heart of an analysis of the welfare state within capitalism’ (p 213) that Williams argues, should be both specific and linked to each other as well as to class issues.