Housing, States and Localities (Routledge Library Editions: Housing)

A continual problem in modern societies is how housing of a good standard can be provided for all those who need it. Some countries, and some local areas within any one country, have clearly succeeded better than others. Originally published in 1985, Housing, States and Localities shows how and why success and failure in housing provision come about. It does this using comparative analysis of two countries – Britain and Sweden – and four localities within Britain – Sheffield, rural Norfolk, Crawley and Brighton. Variation in the levels and forms of housing provision are explained by variations in how housing is built, how state policies are formed, and how consumers react to their housing. But the nature of these social relations varies from place to place, and the book also relates differences in housing provision to the different characteristics of these states and localities.

It is very much an argument of the book that success and failure in housing can only be understood in the context of wider social conflicts and social orders. The book also examines the strengths and weaknesses of comparative methodology and establishes a general strategy for urban and regional research – one that recognizes the similar structures and processes encountered in capitalist societies but at the same time can deal with the actual situations specific to particular places at particular times.

Peter Dickens trained as an architect at University of Cambridge. He later introduced a new Urban Studies degree at University of Sussex. More recently he has held positions at Universities of Essex, University of Cambridge and University of Brighton. His book Society and Nature received an Outstanding Publication award from the American Sociological Association. For the past ten years he has been publishing books and articles on the sociology of outer space.

Simon Duncan (1949–2025) was most recently Emeritus Professor of Comparative Social Policy at the University of Bradford. Prior to joining Bradford in 1995 he lectured in Geography at the London School of Economics and held a Visiting Fellowship in Urban Studies at the University of Sussex. He also enjoyed research fellowships at Lund and Manchester universities. In the first part of his career Simon researched gendered geographies, the local state, and comparative housing provision in Europe. Later, during the 1990s, he reshaped his academic work and developed an impressive research record in families, relationships, and personal life.

Mark Goodwin is Emeritus Professor of Human Geography at the University of Exeter, where he held the position of Deputy Vice-Chancellor from 2013–2022. He has written or edited 8 books, including Introducing Human Geographies, the UK’s leading introductory undergraduate textbook, now in its fourth edition. In 2011 he became a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.

Fred Gray is an emeritus professor at the University of Sussex. His publications over the last two decades include Making the Future, an edited history of the University of Sussex; the critically acclaimed Designing the Seaside: Architecture, Society and Nature; a cultural history of the palm, simply called Palm; and The Architecture of British Seaside Piers.