ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the literature about desire for ownership. Housing and urban studies have sought to provide explanations for this (r)evolution in the way in which households hold land. Ownership has been constructed over time as home ownership; and as a normal, rational human desire. Property ownership, thus, provides a key method of governing individuals, working through their freedom. It prevented the descent to pauperism, as well as providing stability, responsibility, thrift, health, wealth and an example to others. While the rise of council housing in the post-First World War period has proved contentious among housing studies scholars, the rise of property ownership during the same period has been less so. The Royal Commission itself accepted the need for facilitative regulation but, for its rationale, could come up with no better than that the societies ‘must have had great influence in training class to business habits’.
