ABSTRACT
This chapter distinguishes between is dwelling and housing policy, and so it may be useful to offer a simple sketch of what it consider these two distinct entities to be. Dwelling is about being settled on the earth, where we are accepted the environment and where we can accept it. Housing policy is the concern for the production, consumption, management and maintenance of a stock of dwellings. The significant aggregations may be local, regional or national, but in each case housing is seen as an aggregated concept and one that is determined by standards set at one or all of these levels. Housing policy is about what happens outside; dwelling is about what happens inside. It makes some comments about the ambition of housing research, about what it seeks to do and what it actually can do, and thus to lay the groundwork for a discussion on method in the chapter.
