Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of the book. The book deals with the relationship between race and housing in two advanced industrial societies, and particularly with comparing the ways in which governments have administered laws designed to reduce racial disadvantage and discrimination in housing. Britain legislated against racial discrimination at almost the same time as the United States, and although Britain experienced nothing equivalent to the American racial troubles of the 1960s, disillusionment with the 1965 and 1968 Race Relations Acts soon developed. The book places the study in context by identifying similarities and differences between Britain and America in the following areas: the size and nature of minority populations, race as a political issue, the extent of racial discrimination and disadvantage, patterns of urban development and minority settlement, and the role of the state in housing and race relations.