BOOK REVIEW

The Ideology of Home Ownership: Homeowner Societies and the Role of Housing
Richard Ronald (2008)
Palgrave Macmillan, Hardback £55.00, ISBN 9781403989451

This book was published a few months ago, and due to lead times in printing, not to mention the time it takes to write a book of this size, the majority of the material must have been written some time ago. However, in a year that has seen such enormous change in the housing world, the subject of the book has only become more pertinent. The author takes a long view, as is essential in a work of this nature, so changing context does little to diminish its value. Ronald’s aim for the book is to consider how and why home ownership has become so significant in a range of international contexts, and to develop understanding of the role of housing systems, ideologies and practices in social structures.

Ronald’s work here is, to narrowly avoid a football analogy, a book of two halves. The opening half of the book is described by the author as theoretical, while the second half is called empirical and comparative. Beyond the subject matter, though, the whole writing style differs quite noticeably between the two halves, as is evident from a quick skim of the contents: the first four chapters’ subheadings include lots of “isms” and “izations” and even a “discourses” for good measure; the latter chapters’ include “a British nation of homeowners”, “an American home ownership dream” and “home ownership in Hong Kong”. The language adopted in the theoretical section of the book is probably such that most outside of academic housing studies will find it hard-going; this is a shame as it is a topic that certainly warrants plenty of attention from those involved in housing policy, and could also be of interest to some working in housing practice, as they consider clients’ aspirations (and particularly in relation to the array of shared ownership and shared equity options on the market).

One of the strengths of the publication is Ronald’s inclusion of two different types of homeowner societies – Anglo-Saxon and East Asian, and several different nations in each of these categories. The book illustrates differences (and similarities) between these different societies in a way that provides greater understanding of each. While the three East Asian case studies, for example, seem fundamentally distinct and different (a fact which Ronald does not avoid), the author has been able to identify key similarities in the ideological conception of homeownership, and its use as a means to pursue economic and social outcomes. Readers will find they gain insight from this drawing together of common features.

Whilst the book is strong on different examples of homeowner societies, I found it to be less so on the subject of societies with lower rates of homeownership. Of course, those are not the subject that the author chose for the book, so I do not suggest that they should be given equal standing, but I feel that more use could have been made of them as counter-examples. Towards the close of the book, Ronald briefly discusses changes in Western European societies with low rates of home ownership; this provides an interesting glimpse of the comparisons that could have been made, and is certainly something I would have liked to read more of.

As described above, there is a strong delineation between the two sections of the book, but the strong structuring goes deeper than that and is very beneficial. The chapters (particularly in the second half) form logical discrete blocks. Throughout the book each chapter is topped and tailed with a well-written introduction and conclusion that does a good job of bringing together the content of the chapter. Within chapters, the author uses plenty of subheadings; they are mostly well-selected to give you a sense of where you are in the flow of the book, although there are several variations on the same themes (within 18 pages we find one “housing and ideology” and two “home ownership ideologies”, with the subsequent chapter called “homeowner ideologies”. References to “home ownership” and “ideology(ies)” are inevitable as the subject of the book but as section heading do not provide as much differentiation as some of the other headings used.

In conclusion, whilst the distinction between the two sections of the book is somewhat jarring, and the first half of the book may put off readers who could make considerable use of the second half, the strong structuring does work to mitigate that. Readers not wishing to take on the whole book should find it relatively easy to pick out those sections that are of most use and interest to them.

Jim Vine,
Head of Programme (UK Housing Policy and Practice) BSHF