HOUSING: FROM NIGHT WATCHMAN STATE TO WELFARE STATE

This paper illustrates and evaluates some of the features of the Danish and European research of the history of housing policy and relates these to the main results and perspectives in the author's doctoral thesis 'Housing: From Night Watchman State to Welfare State - Construction and Housing Policy in three Danish Towns, 1850-1930', 2006. The paper argues that the roots of the welfare state's housing policy are to be found in the far more prominent part which the public sector got to play in the Danish society as a result of the crises following World War I and the conjunctural repercussions throughout the 1920s.