ABSTRACT
Civil rights laws providing remedies for individuals are based on principles of equity deriving from English Common Law. As such, they prevent the problem of discrimination from being perceived in terms of broad structural forces, such as the fundamental economic interest which property industries have in social segregation. The relationship between race and public sector housing has been a much less politicised issue in the United Kingdom, partly because the black population is less visible and has fewer political resources than have American minorities (of which more later), but also because, in the absence of ghetto conditions, consciousness of any problem on the part of local government officials and national élites is lower than in the United States. In the United States, the dispersal of low and moderate income housing to white areas has come to dominate policy debate in the race and housing area.
