Reviving Local Authority Housing Delivery: Challenging Austerity Through Municipal Entrepreneurialism

Description

This book provides crucial insight into the fight back against austerity by local authorities through emerging forms of municipal entrepreneurialism in housing delivery. Capturing this moment within its live context, the authors examine the ways that local authorities are moving towards increased financial independence based on their own activities to implement new forms and means of housebuilding activity. They assess these changes in the context of the long-term relationship between local and central government and argue that contemporary local authority housing initiatives represent a critical turning point, whilst also providing new ways of thinking about meting housing need.

Janice Morphet is a Visiting Professor at the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London. Ben Clifford is Associate Professor in Spatial Planning and Government at the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London.

"Posits a different potential role for local authorities as challengers to austerity and as local innovators." Rose Grayson, Policy Manager at Shelter "Historically informed and conscious of the challenges and risks, this concise book offers a sympathetic perspective on English local authorities' newly "entrepreneurial" approaches to revivifying their role in housing delivery." Brett Christophers, Uppsala University "An excellent, timely analysis of the re-emergence of the direct provision of housing by English local authorities in a context of super-austerity. It is a nicely crafted balance of history, institutional expertise and housing studies. I particularly liked the financial insights arising from jointly considering local government and the new models on housing reported here. Well done for highlighting this important but too often neglected area." Kenneth Gibb, Director, UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence.