Academic Publications of Interest

Flint, J. and Robinson, D. (eds) (2008) Community Cohesion in Crisis: New Dimensions of Diversity and Difference. Policy Press.

There is an alleged crisis of cohesion in the UK, manifested in debates about identity and ‘Britishness’, the breakdown of social connections along the fault lines of geography, ethnicity, faith, income and age, and the fragile relationship between citizen and state. This book examines how these new dimensions of diversity and difference, so often debated in the national context, are emerging at the neighbourhood level. Contributors from a range of disciplinary backgrounds critically assess, and go beyond the limits of, contemporary policy discourses on ‘community cohesion’ to explore the dynamics of diversity and cohesion within neighbourhoods and to identify new dimensions of disconnection between and within neighbourhoods. The chapters provide theoretically informed critiques of the policy responses of public, private, voluntary and community organisations and present a wealth of new empirical research evidence about the dynamics of cohesion in UK neighbourhoods. Topics covered include new immigration, religion and social capital, faith schools, labour and housing market disconnections, neighbourhood territoriality, information technology and neighbourhood construction, and gated communities.

McKee, K. (2008) Transforming Scotland's Public-Sector Housing through Community Ownership: The Reterritorialisation of Housing Governance? Space and Polity 12 (2): 183-196.

In recent decades, UK public-sector housing has increasingly been problematised, with government solutions focusing on modernising the sector by transferring ownership of the housing from the public to the voluntary sector through stock transfer. This promises to transform the organisation of social housing by devolving control from local government to housing organisations located within, and governed by, the communities in which they are based. The Scottish Executive's national housing policy of community ownership is the epitome of this governmental rationale par excellence. Drawing upon empirical research on the 2003 Glasgow housing stock transfer, this paper argues that, whilst community ownership is underpinned by governmental rationales that seek to establish community as the new territory of social housing governance, the realisation of these political ambitions has been marred by emergent central-local conflict. Paradoxically, the fragmentation of social housing through the break-up of municipal provision co-exists with continued political centralisation within the state apparatus.

Murie, A. & Rowlands, R. (2008) The new politics of urban housing Environment & Planning C 26(3): 644-659

The significant changes in housing policy in the UK over the last three decades have been widely described and discussed. Public housing has moved away from centre stage because of privatisation and the decline in new public sector building. In the last decade there has been a renewed concern to provide affordable housing, but policy has not reverted to the earlier model where the affordable-housing drive was led by local authorities and new towns. Instead, it has turned to the use of the planning system to deliver different kinds of affordable housing, and one consequence has been the advent of a different style and density of urban housing development. The authors address the change in housing provision from a perspective related to the politics of construction. They play off earlier work by Dunleavy, and contrast the new politics of urban housing with those described in the era prior to 1975. They draw on research on mixed-tenure developments and regional housing strategies in England, and suggest that there is a new technological and ideological shortcut which is affecting the pattern of housing in major urban areas. Although there are some profound differences from the era of mass housing, there are also some important similarities in the factors that underpin the new politics of urban housing. The authors discuss key issues and provide suggestions for future research.