ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at some of the main developments that took place in housing policy in the years before the First World War and, in particular, examines the state's response to the environmental critique made by the garden city movement. Housing politics at Westminster from the 1890s until the outbreak of the First World War was largely a response to these 'ground roots' issues, with the localities rather than central government providing the impetus for fresh legislation. The clearance of slum areas and the provision of new housing in replacement remained a major concern of local authorities until 1914 and after. Some aspects of the housing problem were related to the cyclical pattern of speculative house-building and were susceptible to amelioration by market forces. Although in retrospect it seems to mark a new phase in the history of state housing, at the time it was largely by reference to traditional arguments of public health that this innovation was justified.
