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A Contrived CountrysideThe Political Economy of English Rural Housing

A Contrived Countryside: The Political Economy of English Rural Housing [This chapter provides a framework for appreciating the contrived nature of the English countryside. This is not based on a series of deliberate acts, targeted toward a particular vision of what the countryside should be. Rather it derives from identifying how public policy across many legislative enactments and policy instruments, stretching across the decades, set the tone that made today’s outcomes more likely. A few national decisions were fundamental to the evolution of the countryside, such as the introduction of rent restrictions in 1915 and the instigation of mass municipal housing in 1919. None of these were determining. They could have been pulled back from. This chapter explores dominant features in English society that made such reversals unlikely. These include proclivities toward amateurism, muddling through rather than visionary policy, status infused top-down hierarchies, poor productivity, discriminations that left certain economic sectors in low-wage purgatory, including agriculture, inflexible, slow changing, under-resourced and highly constrained rural governments, and predilections toward urban favouritism. The chapter draws links to place the rural housing scene within the context of these fundamental characteristics of the state.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A Contrived CountrysideThe Political Economy of English Rural Housing

Part of the Local and Urban Governance Book Series
Hoggart, Keith
A Contrived Countryside — Mar 27, 2021
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46 pages

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Publisher
Springer International Publishing
Copyright
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
ISBN
978-3-030-62650-1
Pages
497 –542
DOI
10.1007/978-3-030-62651-8_8
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[This chapter provides a framework for appreciating the contrived nature of the English countryside. This is not based on a series of deliberate acts, targeted toward a particular vision of what the countryside should be. Rather it derives from identifying how public policy across many legislative enactments and policy instruments, stretching across the decades, set the tone that made today’s outcomes more likely. A few national decisions were fundamental to the evolution of the countryside, such as the introduction of rent restrictions in 1915 and the instigation of mass municipal housing in 1919. None of these were determining. They could have been pulled back from. This chapter explores dominant features in English society that made such reversals unlikely. These include proclivities toward amateurism, muddling through rather than visionary policy, status infused top-down hierarchies, poor productivity, discriminations that left certain economic sectors in low-wage purgatory, including agriculture, inflexible, slow changing, under-resourced and highly constrained rural governments, and predilections toward urban favouritism. The chapter draws links to place the rural housing scene within the context of these fundamental characteristics of the state.]

Published: Mar 27, 2021

Keywords: A conservative nation; Laissez-faire priorities; Top-down direction; Rural diversity; Local autonomy

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