ABSTRACT
The themes of this book concern the transformation of housing policy and its increasing complexity within the context of the crises affecting the British state and economy during the mid-1970s; and the processes of liberalisation, privatisation and individualisation of welfare and economic policy that emerged out of the transition from Keynesian demand management to neoliberal supply-side policies. Previous chapters have looked in detail at the transformation in the role and function of tenures and the organisational changes in the delivery of housing policy in the UK. In the next chapter Rob Rowlands considers the meaning of the role of community and housing in delivering sustainable communities. This chapter adopts a wider spatial focus and emphasises how housing policy and, more specifi cally, the spatial aspects of housing strategy development have evolved in response to changes in the discourse affecting housing. Central to this changing discourse are issues of distribution and access to housing and how this has altered over the past 20 to 30 years.
