ABSTRACT
The result of the research undertaken throughout the latter part of the 1970s, there has emerged 'a much clearer picture of the political nature of housing, of the redistributional effects of the housing system and of the limits to the incrementalist managerial solutions. Since the early 1970s, housing research has developed into one of the major foci of research into urban geography. Urban managerialism, as applied to housing, has advanced considerably the body of knowledge on how, why and to whom scarce resources are allocated and has laid a sound empirical foundation for further research. Demand-based explanations have focused on the competition between households for land and incorporate three distinct lines of investigation, the neo-classical economic approach, the ecological approach and the behavioural approach. Attention needs to be focused on the relationship between household choice and the constraints imposed by the agencies of supply, thus unifying the managerial and behavioural approaches.
