Housing and Social Policy
Housing and Social Policy This book looks at the changing nature of housing policy in the UK and how it relates to the economy and society generally. Contributors to the book consider the effects of market forces and state action on low-income households, different social classes, women, minority ethnic groups, and disabled people. It is argued that housing is a key focus for economic development, for social justice, for everyday lived experience, for class struggle, for gender and racial divisions, for organising the life course, and for physical and social regeneration. A key theme of the book is that, although housing is inextricably bound up with all aspects of our lives, we experience it in very different ways, depending on our social status, our spatial location, and our own physical, mental and financial characteristics. Contributors emphasise not only the differences among individuals, however, but also how the pattern of these differences can be understood through a focus on housing in particular. In this way, what appears to be a uniquely individualised experience can in reality be understood as a product of a complex web of interactions of different kinds, which assumes a relatively concrete shape in the context of housing. Categories of class, gender, race, disability and age are therefore shown to intersect while, at the same time, housing policy itself merges imperceptibly with other kinds of policy, such as economic, family, health, education, crime, and environment policy, under the ‘catch-all’ title of ‘regeneration’. Consequently, both housing experience and housing policy lose their specificity and become generalised as well as individualised.
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