Here’s a curiosity. Today I came across a piece on council housing that I’d originally drafted back in 2006 as a chapter for a book. Unfortunately, the book never came into being, for a variety of reasons. The piece has been sitting, neglected, on a memory stick ever since.

It struck me that it would be a shame not to do something with it. No point leaving it in the cupboard even longer. The argument might be of some interest.

I have lightly edited the text so that it can be read as a freestanding piece of work. There are one or two places where subsequent policy change has altered the trajectory of the sector’s development, but I have resisted the urge to modify the substance of the argument. The piece reflects how I was thinking about the issue all those years ago.

You can read the whole thing below the fold. Just a warning, it’s written as a proper academic piece – with references and everything – not the sort of rather airy broad brush arguments that you normally encounter on this blog. 🙂

 

What Went Wrong? The rethinking of council housing