This book of specially commissioned essays by distinguished housing scholars addresses the big issues in contemporary debates about housing and housing policy in the UK. Setting out a distinctive and coherent analysis, it steers a course between those accounts that rely on economic theory and analysis and those that emphasize policy.

It is informed by the idea that the 1970s was a pivotal decade in the second half of the twentieth century, and that since that time there has been a profound transformation in the housing system and housing policy in the UK. The contributors describe, analyze and explain aspects of that transformation, as a basis for understanding the present and thinking about the future. The analysis of housing is set within an understanding of the wider changes affecting the economy and the welfare state since the crises of the mid 1970s.

Introduction  2. Housing Policy and the Housing System in the 1970s  3. A Privileged State?  4. The Right to Buy  5. The Evolution of Stock Transfer  6. The Rise (and Rise?) of Housing Associations  7. The Transformation of Private Renting  8. Home Ownership: Where Now?  9. Meeting the Demand for New Housing  10. Competitiveness and Social Exclusion  11. The Sustainable Communities  12. Rediscovering Housing Policy  13. Conclusions and Questions About the Future 

Peter Malpass is Professor of Housing and Urban Studies at the University of the West of England, UK.

Rob Rowlands is Lecturer at the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, School of Public Policy, University of Birmingham, UK.