The UK’s housing shortage and the negative effects this brings for renters, mortgage-payers and those in social housing is rarely out of the news, making Stuart Lowe’s account of the current situation a relevant introduction to the topic. Kerwin Datu would have valued more answers from Lowe on where we can go next, however

Datu, Kerwin

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blogs.lse.ac.uk http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/2012/03/18/book-review-the-housing-debate-by-stuart-lowe/Book Review: The Housing Debate by Stuart LoweMar 18 2012The UK’s housing shortage and the negative effects this brings for renters,mortgage-payers and those in social housing is rarely out of the news, makingStuart Lowe’s account of the current situation a relevant introduction to thetopic. Kerwin Datu would have valued more answers from Lowe on where we cango next, however.The Housing Debate. Stuart Lowe. Policy Press. 280 pages. September2011. Find this book:  There are many big issues affecting UK housing today. The impactof the financial crisis on prices and mortgages, the ghettoisation ofcouncil estates, and the imbalance of home ownership and rentinghave all had immense press coverage over the last few years, andacademics too have attempted to focus on the effects of housingshortages and urban redevelopment as the struggle for an answercontinues. The capital’s housing shortage is now also at the centreof the London Mayoral Election campaign, as candidates promiseto address problems in the hope of winning votes.In The Housing Debate, Stuart Lowe, Senior Lecturer in SocialPolicy at the University of York, does not attempt to tackle thesedebates head on, but instead provides readers with a solidhistorical, geographic and theoretical foundation on which to buildtheir views. Historical, in that the emergence and evolution of the‘housing question’ is traced from the collapse of the landlord-tenantparadigm in the Victorian era, to the massive building programmesof the government and the consumer housing of the private sector, to the entrenchment ofthe home-ownership culture and the globalisation of mortgage finance. Geographic, inthat this history is laid out against a backdrop of parallel shifts in countries throughoutNorthern Europe, which from similar starting points drifted towards rather differentbalances of state versus private construction and ownership versus renting. Andtheoretical, in that these evolutions are explained by a political scientist through aninstitutionalist lens, in which different balances of power between trade unions, pettylandlords and big business made certain solutions to the housing question more politic inone country than in another, creating institutions that channelled the policy choices of futuregenerations either towards an ownership culture or an ownership/rental hybrid.Lowe’s subsequent argument is important because it broadens the field in which contemporaryhousing debates are argued. Housing is not simply an end in itself, but is also a means to fulfil otherneeds. More than a question of how best to satisfy housing demand, Lowe argues that housingpolicies must also be understood in terms of the whole architecture of the welfare regime. We arenot simply moving from a welfare state towards a neo-liberal society, in which social housing isincreasingly a ‘residual’ option. Rather we are moving from a regime in which families’ welfarestrategies depend on state redistribution to one where they depend on the asset value of theirhomes to act as a savings base and as ‘insurance against life’s problems and necessities’- anequity-as-welfare state.It must be said that we have not completed this transition, but it is clear that we must start debatingthe implications of the model. What happens when the state begins to depend on housing to fundour welfare needs, rather than the other way around? What new demands will a home-owning classimpress upon the political system, especially with regards to taxation and expenditure, and whatnew policy paradigm will it create in response? What new inequalities will widen between home-owners and renters as this paradigm is locked in?Having brought us to the brink of these questions, however, Lowe stops well short of speculating onthe answers. The reader is left with the sense that one still does not know any better how to navigatethe future, despite the exemplary history lesson that one has just received. The Housing Debate isremarkably well-structured and digestible for a piece of academic work; it would have beenwonderful if Lowe had found a way not only to answer the questions he has created in the reader’smind, but also to tie these answers back to some of the more popular policy debates mentionedabove.To consider some fairly perverse examples, how might one’s views on the ownership versus rentingdebate change if one saw it as a welfare policy issue rather than a housing accessibility issue?Could the choice to rent come to be seen as a failure to ensure one’s long-term welfare, rather thansimply a desire for flexibility? Might those who choose to buy their homes be denied health oreducation subsidies in the future, on the argument that their equity should cover these costs ratherthan the state? The Housing Debate does not entertain such discussions, but at least it leavesreaders better informed to speculate for themselves.——————————————————————————————-Kerwin Datu originally trained in architecture, in which he worked in Sydney, Paris and London,before completing the MSc in Urbanisation and Development at LSE. He is now pursuing a PhD onthe role of the global city network in international economic development, focused on African cities.As Editor-in-chief of The Global Urbanist, he receives and publishes essays and magazine articleson issues affecting urban development in cities around the world, and is always open tosubmissions from new contributors. Read more reviews by Kerwin.You may also be interested in the following posts (automatically generated):1. An end to ‘tenancy for life’ in the social housing sector will not solve current acute shortages.The UK simply needs more homes for social housing tenants2. The government needs to invest in affordable housing in London3. The Government’s Housing Strategy is a step in the right direction, but the goal of constructingenough homes for the projected increase in households is slipping out of our grasp.4. When planning for new housing developments, we must make sure they are built wherepeople actually want to live.

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