Private Enterprise in Eclipse? A Reassessment of British Housing Policy in the 1940s

Conventional analyses of housing policy in most European countries treat the 1940s as a decade when private enterprise was eclipsed by social housing programmes. As a result, private enterprise is also eclipsed in most accounts of housing and housing policy in the early post-war period. This paper draws on the British experience to show that if the policy narrative is traced from wartime plans rather than from post-war action, and if the question of who actually built post-war social housing is raised, then a different picture emerges. From the middle of 1942 British civil servants and ministers were engaged in detailed planning for post-war housing, in both the short and long term. Private enterprise was assumed to have a major role to play in the long term, and a supporting role in the transitional period. In practice the post-war Labour Government relied on local authorities as housing developers, who themselves relied on private contractors to build the houses. The eclipse of private enterprise was, therefore, more apparent than real.     

Macmillan’s martyr: the Pilgrim case,the ‘land grab’ and the Tory housing drive, 1951–9

The suicide of Edward Pilgrim in 1954 prompted a public furore over the easy terms on which public authorities could compulsorily purchase privately owned land for development. This article argues that Harold Macmillan, as Conservative Housing Minister after 1951, consciously prolonged the statist purchase provisions of the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act even as a reviving market in development land in the early 1950s made them unrealistic and inequitable. The Tories’ twin aims of abolishing the 1947 development charge and making good the ambitious 1951 election pledge to build 300,000 houses per year created an immensely complex set of problems which Macmillan negotiated with much skill. The result, though, was that local authorities – mostly Labour ones – eager to build houses benefited and many individual small owners like Pilgrim suffered from this policy. The Tory pledge was therefore realised in part by means of a hidden subsidy to municipal socialism and at the expense of many natural Conservative supporters.     

Spatial planning and housing policy: On the ties that bind

Spatial planning and housing policy in the Netherlands have supported each other for many years. In addition, spatial planning has played a stimulating role in carrying out spatial policy. Since the end of the 1980s, however, a new coalition has emerged between spatial planning and environmental policy, especially at the intraregional level. In the same period, housing policy has become strongly market-oriented. Thus, frictions have arisen in the relation between spatial planning and housing policy. This paper deals with a number of contradictions between housing policy and spatial planning:

-the artificial shortage of land for housing;

-the tension between urban density and consumer preferences;

-the rigid housing differentiation, which is at odds with the flexibility of housing markets;

-the danger of spatial segregation; and

-the tension between residential construction and environmental priorities.

It proves difficult to combine an ambitious central spatial planning policy with a market-oriented housing policy. A more promising solution would be to approach both fields as a combination of market and policy. This would entail more policy in housing and more market in environmental policy. More coordination between spatial planning and housing policy is both possible and desirable.     

The Role of the Public Sector in Urban Development: Lessons from Leidsche Rijn Utrecht (The Netherlands)

This article describes how the local planning authority plays a role both as a regulator and as a facilitator of urban development processes. Using the study of a large-scale housing development process in the Netherlands (Leidsche Rijn Utrecht), it is argued that the regulating and the facilitating roles of the local planning authority, that are now combined in the spatial plans, could be better if separated. This would allow the planning authority to regulate only where necessary, and to facilitate where possible, thus creating more space for collaborative processes. On a practical level, this analysis allows an approach for the public sector to be discerned, represented by the local planning authority, to pursue housing and land use policy by inducing the other actors in the urban development process to co-operate. On a more theoretical level, the article contributes to our understanding of the role and position of the public sector in development projects where public and private interests meet.     

Local housing policy and residential segregation

The focus of the article is on the relationship between local housing policy and residential segregation. The former is specified as decisions concerning type of tenure and the location of new dwellings, the latter in terms of class and income. Three structurally similar Swedish cities are compared. The results show that, the more market orientated local housing policy and the less “mixed housing” is, the stronger residential segregation. One planning implication seems to be that the development of housing segregation according to class and income, indeed, may be influenced by local planning. If desegregation is given a high priority in a city, housing production should be directed to accomplish this aim.     

Inclusionary housing policy in England: the impact of the downturn on the delivery of affordable housing through Section 106

Section 106 (S106) of the English 1990 Town and Country Planning Act provides local planning authorities with powers to require developers to contribute towards affordable housing provision. Over the last two decades, the success of S106, which seeks to extract some of the development value created by planning consent, has been predicated on rising land values and market demand, thus enabling developers to agree and fulfill their planning obligations. The purpose of this article is to explore how negotiations between local authorities and developers with regard to meeting S106 have altered during the economic downturn in England. Drawing on recent empirical research, and through the use of case studies, the article highlights the ways in which S106 agreements have been renegotiated at the site level, with the discretionary nature of the planning system allowing compromises to be made. Despite S106 being tied to market activity, with developer contributions being reduced in a downturn, it remains an important policy tool in securing affordable housing and achieving inclusionary housing goals within England to date.     

Convergences and discrepancies between the policy of inclusionary housing and Norway’s liberal housing and planning policy: an institutional perspective

Inclusionary housing brings together housing supply policies and social housing policies. This article contrasts this combination of policies to a situation where the two policies are kept separate. Drawing on theory of institutional change, the article highlights constitutional, organisational and cultural aspects of inclusionary housing policy and compares this with the features of a policy where inclusionary housing is not adopted. The article seeks to assess similarities and discrepancies between the English version of inclusionary housing and Norway’s housing and planning policy. The planning law and practices, the policy for housing affordability, financial support systems, actors and organisations are assessed and compared. The article concludes that if Norway wanted to implement ICH, it would be possible to customise the planning practices and finance schemes, but new organisations would have to be established. On top of that, there are also cultural divergences between the policy regimes that would need to be regarded.     

Housing need assessments in San Francisco,Vancouver, and Melbourne: normative science or neoliberal alchemy?

Abstract

Governments in much of the Global North have responded to dramatic increases in house prices and rents by setting supply-side targets for new housing in regional and local plans, based on calculations of need. We apply social constructionism to assess widely divergent needs assessments underlying housing strategies in San Francisco, US; Vancouver, Canada; and Melbourne, Australia. In San Francisco, authorities use an approach required by the state government that ignores overcrowding and other ‘invisible’ criteria. In Vancouver, authorities have taken an ambitious approach that goes beyond a minimum quantum of affordable housing to discuss limits to market production. In Melbourne, the state government has chosen to ignore its own commissioned needs assessment to de-prioritize concerns around affordable housing shortages. We conclude by recommending that planners apply greater rigor in housing needs assessments, that can inform public debates around more equitable housing policy.     

Greasing the wheels,or a spanner in the works? Permitting the adaptive re-use of redundant office buildings into residential use in England

This paper explores the challenges involved in planning the adaptation of the urban built environment. It approaches this subject by appraising a recently introduced national planning policy (the permission to convert office buildings into residential use without planning permission) in England. Drawing on interviews conducted with planning practitioners, it is possible to unravel the impact of this policy instrument at the coal face of the discipline. The office-to-residential conversion policy has removed the long-established process of local planning discretion in England in favour of a developer led planning policy. Consequently, there has been a tactical manipulation of additional planning tools, originally designed for other use, to re-exert influence at the local level by local planning authorities. Rather than greasing the wheels of office-to-residential conversion, the new policy has thrown a spanner in the works of a unique local planning process that was originally developed to manage urban change. The paper concludes by calling for local planners to reformulate their role in planning urban adaptation by reasserting their role as “market actors” through the development of city information models, the exploitation of professional communication networks and the transference of their own tacit knowledge.     

Housing Stock Transfer: Investing in Renewal as a Tool for Sustainable Regeneration

This paper sets out the argument that housing renewal has a major role to play in economic and social regeneration in areas of council owned housing. It considers the role that housing stock transfer, with the shift of ownership from local authorities to Registered Social Landlords (RSLs), might have, not only in generating the investment needed to improve the quality of housing and environments, but also in terms of creating wider regeneration benefits. Using the Welsh policy context, it examines how the first large-scale housing transfer is being used to secure broader regeneration objectives.     

Officer discretion and minority ethnic housing provision

Since the 1980s housing associations have supplanted local authorities as the major providers of new social housing in Britain. This development has been criticised as threatening to introduce particularism and socially constructed definitions of deserving/undeserving status in place of democratically accountable provision. However this article argues that fears about the actions of “unaccountable” housing associations are based upon a falsely grounded nostalgia for local state housing. For example the concept of local authority accountability has been largely notional for minority ethnic communities who have been marginalised and excluded from access to local authority housing. Therefore the potential for housing associations to develop more responsive policies is examined. Primary research from a major British housing association is used to focus upon the opportunities and constraints facing minority ethnic communities as a result of the discretionary role of social gatekeepers. However, it is noted that even the sensitive use of officer discretion may still represent paternalistic provision for minority ethnic communities. Consequently it is suggested that state provision throughout Europe should respond to difference by embracing the potential of a pluralistic housing policy. This would include facilitating opportunities for minority ethnic self-provision of housing alongside universal provision.     

Chameleons or Trojan Horses? The strange case of housing action trusts

Housing Action Trusts (HATs) were conceived by the British government in 1987 as agencies to secure the compulsory removal from local housing authorities of properties needing improvement. They seemed yet another example of a consistent strategy of Conservative governments in the 1980s to transfer functions from elected local government to agencies appointed by the central administration. This new policy looked like more material for party political conflict at both central and local level and the expected conflict took place to such an extent that each of the original six HATs proposed for inner city estates were vetoed by tenants. But by April 1991 the first HAT had been set up after agreement between Hull City Council and the government. In August of the same year Waltham Forest followed and in July 1992 a ballot for a prospective HAT was held in Liverpool. Interest in establishing HATs has accelerated following the Conservative election victory in April 1992 and the government has also restated its interest in receiving direct approaches from tenant groups as well as from local authorities. So what has happened? Is the change another example of Labour local authorities having to come to terms with popular demand for reducing the public housing sector (the Trojan horse scenario) or is it an example of central government salvaging something from a policy which under‐estimated the popularity of council housing (the chameleon scenario)? This article tries to analyse these competing interpretations.     

Incorporating Equity Concerns into Transportation Planning and Policies in Urban China: The Status Quo of Practice and Implications

Transportation equity is one of the most recent concerns toward sustainable urban development, which aims to help municipalities or local planning authorities incorporate equity issues into transportation planning and policies, avoiding multifaceted potential inequity outcomes. As for the urbanizing China, do the mainstream planning approaches fail to take equity issues into account? What are outcomes and the potential countermeasures based on Chinese cities' spatial and policy contexts? From the perspective of transportation equity, this article aims to examine the multidimensional effects related to equity concerns of urban transportation planning and policies in China. It suggests that the municipal government should enhance the service level of public transit and efficiently address the inequity issues of transportation systems. The potential measures include: building a multi-modal transit system, linking affordable housing to the transportation system, highlighting the role of non-motorized mode, and offering proper parking spaces around transit stations.     

From deficient planning to “incapable tenants”. Changing discourses on housing problems in Sweden

Since the mid 1970s, discourses on housing problems and problem tenants in Sweden have changed significantly. This article, which is based on official reports and an urban case study, accounts for this transformation at the national, the urban, as well as the work‐practice level of discourse from a constructivist perspective.

The government's understanding of high vacancy rates were, in the 1970s, associated with deficient planning and building. However, in the 1980s, focus was diverted to a crisis in the public housing sector, which in turn highlighted the “noisy neighbour” as the source of their negative image. At the urban level the shifting discourse is signified by the municipal housing companies’ more selective policy in the 1980s, and the local social authorities’ growing role in housing for homeless clients. Contradictory demands from the role as landlords and as social workers, at the level of work‐practice, resulted in a redefinition and revaluation of homeless clients. In the beginning of the 1990s, these new practices at urban and street‐levels were sanctioned at the national level, thereby completing the shift from structural to individual accounts for housing problems.     

Large‐scale transfers of council housing to new landlords: Is British social housing becoming more ‘European'?

Social housing in Britain has traditionally been provided in a very different way to most other European countries, with municipal authorities having a dominant role. Recently, a number of local authorities have transferred the whole of their housing stocks to new landlords, ceasing to be housing providers. This process of ‘Voluntary Transfer’ is described and analysed, with particular attention paid to the interests of the government, tenants and taxpayers. Voluntary Transfer is an important aspect of the current policy approach in Britain which aims to reduce the role of local authorities as managers and providers of social housing, and to increase the relative importance of housing associations and other organisations. An assessment is made as to whether Voluntary Transfer should be seen as part of a general move towards convergence with the way in which social housing is provided elsewhere in Europe. On balance, it is found that differences between the British and continental approaches continue to be more important than similarities, reflecting institutional, political and historical factors. Nevertheless, social housing organisation in all European countries faces similar pressures in resolving conflicts between economic and social aims.     

Tenant Participation and Social Housing in the UK: Applying a Theoretical Model

Tenant participation is becoming an almost ubiquitous feature of the planning and provision of social housing. A range of opportunities has been (and is being) created by and for tenants to participate in the planning, provision and evaluation of housing services. Yet while local authorities and other social landlords may be keen to consult tenants, and tenants themselves often want to make their voices heard, there is a perennial problem in actually getting people involved. This paper provides a comprehensive framework for understanding this important question. It then reports on recent research that applies the framework in two different contexts: tenants' associations and tenant management organisations. The implications for housing policy and practice are discussed.     

Local Innovation And Global Change: ‘Remaking The Welfare State’ In Sweden1

Swedish urban planning and housing policies have been seen as exemplars by many Australian policy makers. The mixture of state activism, strong local government, broad concepts of welfare policy and social housing, coupled with wide community acceptance of these ideals, has enabled major innovations in housing policy. This article describes the historical background and recent changes to these policies within Sweden's changing political framework. It also shows that global fiscal changes, coupled with Sweden's entry into the ‘federalising’ European Union, have changed the context of these policies. Swedish housing and urban policy is changing; Swedish local government has a strong role in the development and implementation of these changing policies. There are many interesting lessons for Australian urban policy in these changes.     

Food for urban spaces: The development of urban food production in England and Wales

This paper considers the gradual re‐emergence of urban food production initiatives in the local authorities of England and Wales. A typology of local authority actions is constructed which links urban food initiatives to broader Local Agenda 21 processes and community participation initiatives. Several key dimensions are identified which need to be assembled in local authorities if urban food production is to become more widespread. These include: the development of the enabling role of local authorities, the commitment of member involvement, seeing urban food production as a central element in progressing sustainable and community development, developing a more proactive and integrated planning policy which develops capacity and reverses the steady decline in allotment provision. Making the links between food production, community involvement and effective land‐use planning strategies is a key element in progressing food production and reducing the conception of urban food production as simply a contradiction in terms. This will involve the engagement of local authorities, and particularly planning in the broader aspects of the politics and local economy of food currently emerging amongst urban consumers.     

Auckland: Rescaled governance and post-suburban politics

The nature and politics of urban development in Auckland have undergone rapid transformation following amalgamation of eight separate authorities in 2010. Institutions governing metropolitan planning and infrastructure provision were rescaled to form the Auckland ‘Super City’ Council in 2010, with an ambitious vision to become the world's most liveable city and ongoing political contestation between the local and central government. Amalgamation of Auckland's governance was conceived and imposed by the central government as part of a broader economic strategy for “competitive cities”. However, Auckland Council's first strategic plan adopted a contrasting agenda, centred around the goal of “liveability”. Auckland's recent developments illustrate the challenges of a distinctly post-suburban polity. The majority of employment is located in suburban areas and the city has variegated and overlapping patterns in spatial form generated through inconsistent infrastructure interventions across local and national authorities. Conflicting urban policy agenda at national and local scales shows a tension between the pursuit of economic development and provision for collective needs. The politics of post-suburban development create specific challenges for Auckland's governance. Liveability and economic competitiveness are treated as complementary terms in political rhetoric, however trade-offs emerge at a smaller spatial scales. Public concern over housing affordability and risks to the financial stability of New Zealand's economy have led to central government intervention and renegotiation of authority between different tiers of government for land use and infrastructure provision. Auckland's position as New Zealand's largest city and economic centre frequently blurs the distinction between issues of local and national significance. Auckland's governance challenges are not unique, however the current tensions are exacerbated by its dominance in a small and geographically-isolated nation.     

Mass housing and urbanization: on the road to modernization in Santiago,Chile, 1930–60

The creation of the Caja de la Habitación Popular [Popular Housing Fund] in 1936 was largely a quest for the design of a model home and a modern city for Chile, a country emerging from colonialism. The Caja operated for twenty‐six years until 1952, building 43 310 houses during three different presidential administrations. It soon became the major way to reflect the country’s development, modernize society, bolster the economy, support national industry and signal what role housing programmes would play in public policy for the rest of the twentieth century. While previous administrations were motivated primarily by partisan politics, the new era of public administration was based upon an objective planning system. This paper focuses on the Caja’s affordable housing struggle and how it shaped large portions of Santiago between the 1930s and 1960s. It also explores the transformation in public housing programmes and agencies from their amateur beginnings to their later professionalized approach. It examines a number of the public and private housing schemes built during different political regimes in Santiago’s history, the planners and architects making persistent efforts to modernize and develop the city. These projects explored both the potentialities and limitations of urban design in housing and made a profound impact on housing design in Chile, as well as on the morphology of its cities.