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The world has still to emerge fully from the housing-triggered Global Financial Crisis, but housing crises are not new. The history of housing shows long-run social progress, littered with major disasters; nevertheless the progress is often forgotten, whilst the difficulties hit the headlines. Housing Economics provides a long-term economic perspective on macro and urban housing issues, from the Victorian era onwards. A historical perspective sheds light on modern problems and the constraints on what can be achieved; it concentrates on the key policy issues of housing supply, affordability, tenure, the distribution of migrant communities, mortgage markets and household mobility. Local case studies are interwoven with city-wide aggregate analysis. Three sets of issues are addressed: the underlying reasons for the initial establishment of residential neighbourhoods, the processes that generate growth, decline and patterns of integration/segregation, and the impact of historical development on current problems and the implications for policy.

Housing Economics: A Historical Approach

Preface.- 1. Introduction: Why a Historical Approach?.- 2. A Tale of Three Victorian Cities: Exploring Local Case Studies.- 3. Key Concepts from the Literature.- 4. Geology and Cities.- 5. Wars, Epidemics and Early Housing Policy: The Long-run Effects of Temporary Disturbances.- 6. Speculation, Sub-division, Banking Fraud and Enlightened Self-interest: The Making of the Contemporary Glasgow Housing System.- 7. Building Our Way Out of Trouble.- 8. Residential Density Revisited: Sorting and Household Mobility.- 9. Path Dependence, the Spatial Distribution of Immigrant Communities and the Demand for Housing.- 10. Affordability and the Rise and Fall of Home Ownership.- 11. On the Persistence of Poverty and Segregation.- 12. Final Reflections.-