ABSTRACT
The aim of this penultimate chapter is to identify common themes and messages emerging from the previous ten chapters. The chapters were organised loosely around the idea that different policy regimes, and particularly ‘planning policy’ regimes, may create situations in which rural housing markets are more closely regulated (Part One), more reliant on informal regulation (Part Two) or generate an unstable relationship between town and country (Part Three). But added to this broad classification, the intention now is both to revisit the comparative structure set out by Allen (this volume), and to seek an explanation for observed differences in terms of underlying housing cultures and the way these influence political discourse and consequent housing strategy and policy. A key focus for the chapter is the form that power (to drive or regulate development and change) assumes in the case study countries, who wields it and to what end. The rationale of this focus is made apparent in later sections.
