Housing and public policy - Marsh

* Is change in housing driven by policy or by wider social and economic factors?
* How have policy changes affected citizens' rights to housing?
* What has been the impact of housing policy on the choices available to producers and consumers and the control over housing consumption and production?

This book is designed for readers who require an up-to-date and relevant account of housing policy and are interested in the relationship between housing policy and wider social change. Recent policy changes are described, drawing on leading-edge research by the authors, and interpreted using an innovative framework incorporating the concepts of citizenship, choice and control. This approach allows housing studies to be linked with broader issues, and to adopt a questioning approach to distinguish rhetoric from reality in the policy process. While individual chapters provide accessible accounts of change occurring in the specific tenures (owner occupation, private renting, local authorities and registered social landlords), the book as a whole provides a broader overall picture in which these changes can be understood. In particular the authors trace the development and impact of contested ideas of social rights and citizenship on access to and control of housing. The focus on housing policy in Britain in the 1980s and 1990s is widened by considering examples of the different ways citizenship has been constructed in other societies and over a longer period.