Whose Housing Crisis?: Assets and Homes in a Changing Economy

Description

At the root of the housing crisis is the problematic relationship that individuals and economies share with residential property. Housing's social purpose, as home, is too often relegated behind its economic function, as asset, able to offer a hedge against weakening pensions or source of investment and equity release for individuals, or guarantee rising public revenues, sustain consumer confidence and provide evidence of 'growth' for economies. The refunctioning of housing in the twentieth century is a cause of great social inequality, as housing becomes a place to park and extract wealth and as governments do all they can to keep house prices on an upward track.

Nick Gallent is Professor of Housing and Planning and the Head of the Bartlett School of Planning at UCL, UK.

"At last, a book that changes the terms of the great housing debate and challenges the received political wisdom of the main political parties." Peter Hetherington, The Guardian. "This forceful, informed and accessible book makes the housing crisis everyone's problem. The UK's dysfunctional relationship with housing has seeped into the pores of all areas of society and until the pervasive nature of this crisis is grasped, there will be no plausible escape." Brett Christophers, Uppsala University