A Presumption in Favour of Home Ownership? Reconsidering Housing Tenure Strategies

This paper discusses changes in housing finance, tenure and policy in the UK in the context of Kemeny's important and influential discussion of political tenure strategies. The evolution of housing tenure in that country since the 1970s has not conformed to the thesis of a simple presumption in favour of home ownership and the paper argues that the framework for housing analysis must look beyond tenure categories, recognise the complex variations within tenures and consider the overriding importance of wider structural pressures related to class, income and wealth and the role of local actors and local variation.