The Radical Homeowner


Book Description

Originally published in 1994, this book provides an important contribution to contemporary housing debates as well as clear examples of the use of qualitative data in causal analysis. Based on 3 original Australian case studies and a range of international data, this book demonstrates that the interests and meanings of home ownership can lead home owners into radical courses of social action that oppose the status quo, despite national governments having sponsored a remarkable growth in home ownership to promote a loyal citizenship and political stability.




Critical Realism and Housing Research


Book Description

Since the nineteenth century various housing solutions have evolved, such as sprawling Australian home ownership and compact Dutch social rental housing. This phenomenon cannot be adequately explained with simple descriptions of key events, politics and housing outcomes. Critical Realism and Housing Studies pushes debate forward, arguing that a new ontological perspective is required to address fundamental issues in housing and comparative research. This book is clearly organized into three parts which: evaluate ontological and methodological alternatives for comparative housing research provide two historical case studies inspired by critical realist ontology compare the causal tendencies that explain diverging housing pathways in Australia and the Netherlands. Lawson proposes that we turn to critical realism for the solution. From this perspective the causal tendencies of complex, open and structured housing phenomena are highlighted. With this insight we are able to extract the key social arrangements which promote different housing solutions from the historical case studies. Social arrangements which are found to influence alternative pathways in housing history concern the property rights, circuit of savings and investment, as well as labour and welfare relations. As they develop differently over time and space they affect where, when and how housing solutions develop.




Critical Realism and Housing Research


Book Description

First Published in 2006. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.




The Ideology of Home Ownership


Book Description

Demand for owner-occupied housing has expanded dramatically across modern-industrialized societies in recent years leading to volatile increases in residential property values. This book explores the rise of modern home-ownership as a cultural, socio-political and ideological phenomenon.




Radical Solutions to the Housing Supply Crisis


Book Description

As housing supply in England reaches crisis point, Duncan Bowie provides a critical review of housing policy under successive UK governments. From Blair’s New Labour and Cameron’s Coalition government to the 2016 Housing and Planning Act, Bowie demonstrates how successive governments have failed to provide adequate, affordable housing, leading to a chronic lack of provision. Exploring the inter-relationship between housing, planning and land policies, Bowie puts forward a reform programme based on an alternative set of policy priorities and delivery mechanisms, arguing the case for an integrated approach on land, taxation, planning and public investment to provide radical solutions to a growing crisis.




International Encyclopedia of Housing and Home


Book Description

Available online via SciVerse ScienceDirect, or in print for a limited time only, The International Encyclopedia of Housing and Home, Seven Volume Set is the first international reference work for housing scholars and professionals, that uses studies in economics and finance, psychology, social policy, sociology, anthropology, geography, architecture, law, and other disciplines to create an international portrait of housing in all its facets: from meanings of home at the microscale, to impacts on macro-economy. This comprehensive work is edited by distinguished housing expert Susan J. Smith, together with Marja Elsinga, Ong Seow Eng, Lorna Fox O'Mahony and Susan Wachter, and a multi-disciplinary editorial team of 20 world-class scholars in all. Working at the cutting edge of their subject, liaising with an expert editorial advisory board, and engaging with policy-makers and professionals, the editors have worked for almost five years to secure the quality, reach, relevance and coherence of this work. A broad and inclusive table of contents signals (or tesitifes to) detailed investigation of historical and theoretical material as well as in-depth analysis of current issues. This seven-volume set contains over 500 entries, listed alphabetically, but grouped into seven thematic sections including methods and approaches; economics and finance; environments; home and homelessness; institutions; policy; and welfare and well-being. Housing professionals, both academics and practitioners, will find The International Encyclopedia of Housing and Home useful for teaching, discovery, and research needs. International in scope, engaging with trends in every world region The editorial board and contributors are drawn from a wide constituency, collating expertise from academics, policy makers, professionals and practitioners, and from every key center for housing research Every entry stands alone on its merits and is accessed alphabetically, yet each is fully cross-referenced, and attached to one of seven thematic categories whose ‘wholes' far exceed the sum of their parts




In Defense of Housing


Book Description

In every major city in the world there is a housing crisis. How did this happen and what can we do about it? Everyone needs and deserves housing. But today our homes are being transformed into commodities, making the inequalities of the city ever more acute. Profit has become more important than social need. The poor are forced to pay more for worse housing. Communities are faced with the violence of displacement and gentrification. And the benefits of decent housing are only available for those who can afford it. In Defense of Housing is the definitive statement on this crisis from leading urban planner Peter Marcuse and sociologist David Madden. They look at the causes and consequences of the housing problem and detail the need for progressive alternatives. The housing crisis cannot be solved by minor policy shifts, they argue. Rather, the housing crisis has deep political and economic roots—and therefore requires a radical response.




A Nation of Home Owners


Book Description

Originally published in 1990, and re-issued in 2020 with an updated Preface, this book shows how the UK has become a nation of home owners, and the effect it has had on people’s lives, the impact which it has had on British society and the implications for those who have hitherto been excluded. The book briefly charts the history of the growth of owner-occupation in Britain and considers the evidence on the popularity of owning as opposed to renting. The question of whether and how owner occupiers accumulate wealth from their housing is discussed and the evidence on the political implications of the growth of owner-occupation examined. The influence of buying a house on the way that home is experienced is analysed and the sociological implications in regard to the analysis of social inequalities in Britain discussed. The research for the book was based on in-depth interviews with home-owners and tenants in Burnley, Derby and Slough.




The Housing Bomb


Book Description

How our thirst for more and larger houses is undermining society and what we can do about it. Have we built our way to ruin? Is your desire for that beach house or cabin in the woods part of the environmental crisis? Do you really need a bigger home? Why don’t multiple generations still live under one roof? In The Housing Bomb, leading environmental researchers M. Nils Peterson, Tarla Rai Peterson, and Jianguo Liu sound the alarm, explaining how and why our growing addiction to houses has taken the humble American dream and twisted it into an environmental and societal nightmare. Without realizing how much a contemporary home already contributes to environmental destruction, most of us want bigger and bigger houses and dream of the day when we own not just one dwelling but at least the two our neighbor does. We push our children to "get out on their own" long before they need to, creating a second household where previously one existed. We pave and build, demolishing habitat needed by threatened and endangered species, adding to the mounting burden of global climate change, and sucking away resources much better applied to pressing societal needs. “Reduce, reuse, recycle” is seldom evoked in the housing world, where economists predict financial disasters when "new housing starts" decline and the idea of renovating inner city residences is regarded as merely a good cause. Presenting irrefutable evidence, this book cries out for America and the world to intervene by making simple changes in our household energy and water usage and by supporting municipal, state, national, and international policies to counter this devastation and overuse of resources. It offers a way out of the mess we are creating and envisions a future where we all live comfortable, nondestructive lives. The “housing bomb” is ticking, and our choice is clear—change our approach or feel the blast.




The Oxford Handbook of Irish Politics


Book Description

Ireland has enjoyed continuous democratic government for almost a century, an unusual experience among countries that gained their independence in the 20th century. But the way this works in practice has changed dramatically over time. Ireland's colonial past had an enduring influence over political life for much of the time since independence, enabling stable institutions of democratic accountability, while also shaping a dismal record of economic under-development and persistent emigration. More recently, membership of the EU has brought about far-reaching transformation across almost all aspects of Irish life. But if anything, the paradoxes have only intensified. Now one of the most open economies in the world, Ireland has experienced both rapid growth and one of the most severe crashes in the wake of the Great Recession. On some measures Ireland is among the most affluent countries in the world, yet this is not the lived experience for many of its citizens. Ireland is an unequivocally modern state, yet public life continues to be marked by formative ideas and values in which tradition and modernity are held in often uneasy embrace. It is a small state that has ambitions to leverage its distinctive place in the Atlantic and European worlds to carry more weight on the world stage. Ireland continues to be deeply connected to Britain through ties of culture and trade, now matters of deep concern in the context of Brexit. And the old fault-lines between North and South, between Ireland and Britain, which had been at the core of one of Europe's longest and bloodiest civil conflicts, risk being reopened by Britain's new hard-edged approach to national and European identities. These key issues are teased out in the 41 chapters of this book, making this the most comprehensive volume on Irish politics to date.