"This is a big book in every sense: spirit, vision and coverage. It is an impressive piece of scholarship which will become a marker for all studies of housing and related policy issues. This is the first really comprehensive attempt to discuss the history of housing policy issues in the context of the political and economic processes of the last 150 years. It is the best piece of sustained comparative research I know of in the field. It should be of interest to those in various fields of social policy studies as well as housing.
Scholars, policy makers and administrators will simply have to read this book. Its breadth and depth of coverage, and the sophistication of its exploration of theoretical issues, confirm Harloe as one of the major social scientists in housing and related areas of study." Patrick Troy, Australian National University, The People's Home? examines the development of social rented housing over the last hundred years in Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and the USA. It is based on 15 years of research in these countries and a challenging analysis of the socio-economic and political determinants of social housing provision.
Rejecting previous comparative studies, which focus narrowly on the immediate determinants of housing provision, The People's Home? shows how social housing policies and outcomes have been shaped by broader societal forces - political conflict, economic modernisation, and, most recently, the growth of inequality and social polarization.
This important book ends by discussing the implications of this analysis for recent theories of welfare state development, or regimes of "welfare capitalism", and for the nature of state housing policies in such societies.
