ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the emergence of PFI and privatisation as part of a utopian solution to the problems associated with social housing. PFI schemes, it was argued, would tap into private resources and expertise and allow government agencies to tackle the complex governance arrangements involved in social housing delivery and management. Private involvement could also reduce the burdens on increasingly hard-pressed local authorities to meet the demands of social housing dwellers. It was, therefore, a policy solution that found much favour with a reforming welfare agenda. The chapter begins by exploring the relationships between PFI and social housing. It then turns to examples from London to look at both the institutionalisation and delivery of PFI programmes in situ and what this has meant for communities and citizens. The chapter argues differ markedly from the post-political imaginations of new progressive writers, with potentially serious implications for long-term conceptions of citizenship and state legitimacy.
