ABSTRACT
As established in Chapter 1, the 1970s may be seen as a turning point in the development of British housing policy; a decade in which the postwar consensus on the objectives and general direction of policy began to be challenged by new perspectives, some of which took hold from the 1980s onwards. How was housing perceived in the 1970s? What was the nature of the housing system and how was it analysed? What were the main issues of the day and the debates to which they gave rise? This chapter will examine these and other questions as a background to the chapters that follow.
