Analyses of the social, economic and spatial consequences of council house sales have tended to rely on local case study evidence or limited official statistics at the national level. This paper seeks to provide more systematic evidence for England as a whole. Sales which were completed between...

Within debates about the sociology of consumption and more general critiques of state provision there are strong assumptions concerning majority preferences in housing. This paper reviews available survey evidence on housing tenure preferences and presents some original data concerning the...

The Right to Buy for council tenants has now been in operation for 14 years. In that time around 1.5m public-sector dwellings in England have transferred to the owner-occupied sector. Most discussion of this process has focused on the impact on the public sector. This paper examines the...

This paper argues that the relentless logic of commodification has served to undermine a key element of the social cement of contemporary capitalism: home ownership. In addressing this issue, the paper explores the development of the post war ‘social project’ of home ownership with...

Housing markets are at the centre of the recent global financial turmoil. In this well-researched study, a multidisciplinary group of leading analysts explores the impact of the crisis within, and between, countries.

In current theoretical and policy debates concerning social cohesion, the neighbourhood has re-emerged as an important setting for many of the processes which supposedly shape social identity and life-chances. It is in this context of a renewal of interest in local social relations and...

This paper draws on on-going work on Hong Kong's socio-spatial structure to explore the extent to which it fits the dominant image of the global city. While there is a considerable literature on Hong Kong's changing social structure, there is relatively little on the spatial dimensions of social...

As in much of east Asia, the past few decades have seen extraordinary rates of house price inflation in Hong Kong. After a relatively modest downturn in the early 1980s, prices rose rapidly until the Asian financial crisis in 1997. Since then, and despite increased government efforts to...