Introduction

DAVID KROLL

Urban populations continue to increase in most regions of the world, often outpacing the provision of adequate housing.¹ London, as a growing metropolis, is in the middle of a severe housing crisis, widely evident in the press and in political debate. This crisis is caused and exacerbated by a combination of factors: increase in population and number of households; dependency on a market that fails to meet demand; planning restrictions on urban expansion; rising rents and house prices driven up by low supply; the credit boom and foreign investment; inequalities in access to housing; a decline of the affordable housing stock; and the reinforcement of the general trend to exclude lower-to-middle-income households from living in central areas. Housing affects all aspects of our lives, weighing on living standards and economic growth, particularly in expanding, dense urban areas such as London.² Those in greatest need, such as young and low-income families, are often unable to afford adequate housing.³

The difficulty of supplying adequate homes for growing demand is not new. Histories of housing have long dealt with topics that preoccupy debates today – general social concerns, regeneration, densification, gentrification, control of development, building heights, dwelling types, space standards and the all-encompassing but also elusive topic of sustainability. What drives this publication is the idea that these histories should be more explicitly mobilised to offer new perspectives on present debates and to influence these by offering lessons from the past. For example, measured by longevity, sustained popularity, liveability, average densities and productivity, the Victorian period provides numerous good precedents and ideas – something picked up in several of the book’s chapters. No other publication so directly aims to apply lessons from such examples to current issues. The book does not provide solutions, but rather affords glimpses into aspects of how similar problems to those faced now were dealt with in the past.

The idea for the publication grew out of a similarly titled conference held in June 2013, Mobilising London’s Housing Histories: The Provision of Homes Since 1850, hosted by the Institute of Historical Research. This conference, attended by over 100 delegates, was still oversubscribed, no doubt due to the currency of the issue.

Most of the book’s contents arise from this conference – however, with an eye to evenness and coherence, all of the chapters were specifically written for this book, and this is not a ‘proceedings’ volume. The book’s authors, all involved in different ways in the study or production of housing, are a mix of established experts, practitioners and newer researchers. Together they present fresh perspectives on topics as diverse as urban design, retrofit, gentrification, speculative and public housing. In-depth studies of aspects of the past – focused on particular themes, periods or cases – are presented in distinct chapters in roughly chronological order, but with some overlaps. Some chapters focus on a particular time period (e.g. Victorian/Edwardian or post-Second World War). Other essays without dates in the title either cover more or less the whole period of 1850 to today, or are focused on the history of a particular case study (e.g. the Balfron Tower) or theme (e.g. the ‘sink estate’).

These pieces of a larger puzzle link to wider historical contexts and offer the reader more detailed insights than would be possible in a historical overview. There has been no attempt to impose uniformity: the book is a collection of engaged and authoritative but disparate views, united only in taking knowledge of the past and attempting to apply it to present circumstances. To repeat, the aim is not to try to provide solutions to today’s problems, but to explain and re-evaluate past examples, which often reveal surprising parallels. With this book, we aim to inspire those interested in housing – and involved in contributing towards solutions to the crisis – with deeper historical understandings.

At the heart of the present housing question is an affordability crisis, decades in the making and reflected in recent housing statistics. London has the highest proportion of working people who claim housing benefit in the country. The average house price in 2014 in London was £526,085 – 16 times mean annual earnings. The income required for an 80% mortgage at 3.5 times annual incomes would be £120,248 per annum. Rental costs are just as much affected by price inflation; average monthly private sector rents in 2013–14 were £1,461, and since 2014 these costs have gone up even further.⁴ While rental and purchase costs of housing have increased significantly over recent decades, incomes have increased only slightly.⁵ Commenting on 2014 London housing figures, Jonn Elledge, editor of CityMetric, expressed what many are thinking: ‘it’s hard to avoid the feeling that something, somewhere, has gone terribly wrong’.⁶

The causes of the affordability crisis are complex and have been subject to much recent discussion and analysis. One way of framing the issue is around factors affecting demand and supply. On the demand side, a key factor is London’s rising population (approximately an extra one million people annually between 2001 and 2011).⁷ This is driven by high net birth rates (c.80,000 per year) and net immigration (c.20,000 per year), which is linked to London’s success in creating new jobs. Demand for property sales, however, has been dominated by investors (e.g. buy-to-let) rather than by new owner-occupiers in recent years.⁸ Revelations of the extent of overseas investment for tax avoidance, particularly in ‘prime central’, make this imbalance in the market even more controversial.⁹ Successive UK governments have promoted and supported property ownership over other forms of tenure; properties in London, however, are now out of the reach of most first-time buyers, unless they have help from family, and the traditional model of the ‘property ladder’ that supported the ideal of a property-owning democracy seems broken. For the first time in decades, renters outnumber homeowners in London, with often very little security of tenure.¹⁰

The alternative to homeownership, the rental market, has also become increasingly unaffordable. An average income earner on an annual pre-tax salary of £32,838 (about £2,000 a month after tax) would not have much left after paying the average rent of £1,461.¹¹ Families in rental accommodation therefore often need to rely not only on double incomes, but also on other support; about 50% of those in private rental are benefit claimants, contributing to a housing benefit bill in 2012–13 of about £6 billion. In fact, the total bill for housing benefit over the last ten years (c.£50 billion) is significantly higher than the amount of public money that has gone towards building new homes (c.£17 billion).¹² Those who cannot afford private rental accommodation can apply for government-supported social rented housing. This, however, is no longer as affordable as it once was. In 2011, the government introduced a new ‘affordable rent’ model, which allows Housing Associations to set the rent at 80% of local market rates. Previously, social rented housing was set at around 50% of local market rates.¹³

On the supply side, one restriction has been the availability of land suitable for building homes. A study commissioned by the Greater London Authority (GLA) estimates that suitable sites are available in London to build 42,000 homes a year over the next decade.¹⁴ The actual annual average number of new homes built over the last decade, however, is only about 25,000. Even if 42,000 homes a year were realised, this would still fall short of projected needs of 49–63,000 homes, so land availability does need to be considered. In established residential areas, new development is generally restricted, to varying degrees, by planning rules that aim to maintain scale and character.¹⁵ Such positive limitations, however, also mean that finding space for new house-building is a challenge in much of London.

A more proactive and predictable London-wide urban planning approach to densities and acceptable building heights has therefore been suggested as one of the ways to increase house-building activity.¹⁶ The Lyons Housing Review concurs by proposing to ‘de-risk’ the planning process, suggesting that more suitable land should be identified and delivered for building through Local Plans.¹⁷ Under current planning laws, the Green Belt restricts the kind of expansion in overall area that supported London’s house-building booms up to the early twentieth century.¹⁸ It is interesting to note in this regard that until that time, planning approval processes also carried much lower risks of refusal, as urban design codes were significantly simpler.¹⁹

Supply of finance has always been an important factor for house-building productivity. In the immediate post-war period, house building in the UK was largely publicly funded, with councils providing on average over 160,000 homes per year between 1945 and 1975, of which around 20,000 were in Greater London.²⁰ Since housing development by local authorities came to be restricted in the early 1980s, most new housing has been constructed through private enterprise. Yet annual completion rates by private-sector house builders have been on a steady decline since their peak in the 1960s of near 200,000; in 2013, UK-wide completions stood at only about 87,000 homes, significantly short of the projected need of 200,000.²¹ Housing associations, supported by public funding, have also provided a significant share of new housing in recent decades – about 18,800 new homes per year between 1978 and 2013.²²

Smaller house-builders are particularly affected by problems of access to finance. Until the early twentieth century, small builders were responsible for most new house-building, even though they did not have access to lending from banks or building societies.²³ The Victorian house-building industry thrived in part due to a low financial entry threshold thanks to leasehold development (see Chapters One and Two). It should also be noted that philanthropic developers made an important contribution (see also Chapter Three). In the 1980s smaller building firms still contributed over 57% of new housing; in 2013 their share had fallen to only 27%.²⁴ There is now growing interest in reviving this kind of house-building through government policies and initiatives such as localism, self-build and custom-build.²⁵

These hard economic facts around supply and demand are, however, only part of the explanation of London’s current housing crisis. There are also less tangible reasons why it has taken so long for the problem to be taken seriously and why it has been allowed to escalate to such an extent. In the early 2000s rising UK property prices – euphemistically described as a ‘housing boom’ (in fact house price inflation) – were still seen as positive by many and often presented as a sign of a healthy economy.²⁶ Estate agents, banks and others profited from a property market flooded with easy credit. The loudest voices were those that talked about profits from rising property values, rather than about an affordability crisis in the making. Some, however, questioned the economic benefit of the emperor’s new clothes. In 2002 David Walker commented: ‘As prices push on up, what harm is there in partying? The answer is that speculation is economic distraction, distortion, fiddling with redistributing a body of assets – not adding to it. Our successive housing bubbles add to social inequality and express our fiscal immaturity’.²⁷

Today, the social costs of the ‘party’ have become painfully apparent. House prices have moved beyond the reach of most people on average incomes in London.²⁸ It is now obvious that the assumption that rising house prices are a sign of a healthy economy and therefore necessary is flawed. The current affordability crisis in London suggests that high house prices have not in fact increased wealth for society as a whole – a classic economic fallacy of confusing rising monetary values with an actual increase in material wealth. Even if some may have gained financially, rising prices in London have increased social inequality and have resulted in housing costs taking up a higher proportion of incomes (as rent or mortgage payments) – therefore making the average Londoner effectively poorer, rather than richer.²⁹ Yet, even as we begin to experience the far-reaching socio-economic effects of rising housing costs, it remains questionable that there is sufficient political will and support to allow prices to adjust, which is ultimately the only way for housing to become more affordable again. Daniel Bentley aptly called this the elephant in the room: ‘very many people do not want housing costs – or, more precisely, the price of their own home – to fall at all. Most homeowners (which still, for now, means most households) have gained and continue to gain from rapid house price growth’.³⁰

While the causes of the crisis and appropriate solutions are complex and disputed, most would agree that more housing – and housing that is more affordable (not merely labelled as such) – is needed to accommodate growth in population and household formation. Politicians in recent years have promised to address the problem, but affordability and overcrowding have become worse rather than better.

The questions are: What kind of housing is needed? And how to go about providing it?³¹ Housing has a crucial role in contributing to quality of life and wellbeing. These are therefore ultimately also questions of the kind of place that London will be in the future. Affordable housing should not be confused with building cheaply, which would have little impact on house prices; construction costs have only been a minor factor in the escalation of housing costs over recent decades.³² Part of the challenge is therefore to take a long-term and holistic view of affordability, which also means making London’s housing more energy-efficient and sustainable.

What role, then, does history have in contributing to this discussion and answering these questions? It would be wrong to suggest that history can provide easy answers, and this publication makes no such claim. However, history can offer new perspectives to help us see current issues in new lights. In a field as complex as housing, history is a most instructive testing ground. This book provides original historical case studies focused on lessons from past successes and failures, treating London as an exemplar with global relevance. The aim is to explore issues relating to the history of urban or suburban housing from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day, with particular emphasis on liveability, sustainability, affordability and productivity.

While lessons from past precedents are not directly translatable into the future, they can inform it. Irina Davidovici and Richard Dennis present specific examples regarding different kinds of residential blocks. Housing history can remind us of the pitfalls of misapprehension suffered by our predecessors. Examples are obsessions with building high or with the perceived failures of Victorian or post-war social housing, recently and yet again vilified by politicians³³ – issues discussed in different ways by Colin Thom, Peter Guillery, Simon Pepper, David Roberts and Ben Campkin. History can also help to explain the processes that have led to the present and dispel myths; Tanis Hinchcliffe’s chapter, for example, shows that gentrification, far from being a recent phenomenon, has a long history in London – and that an area of seemingly established affluence has undergone varied and unexpected transformations. Even fairly recent topics already have histories, which can inform the way they are approached in the future; examples can be found in Campkin’s chapter on the concept of the ‘sink estate’, as well as in Sofie Pelsmakers and David Kroll’s chapter on recent approaches to the sustainable retrofit of Victorian houses. Finally, an example of the practical application of lessons from history can be found in Simon Hudspith’s essay, in which he describes how buildings of the past have influenced his own design practice.

Each chapter takes its own idiosyncratic lessons and perspectives from the study of London’s past. They do not supply clear answers or instructions, but they do all provide valuable insights. On the question of the role of history more generally, John Tosh has eloquently expressed what this book aims to deliver in relation to London’s housing: ‘If society looks to historians for “answers” in the sense of firm predictions and unequivocal generalization, it will be disappointed. What will emerge from the pursuit of “relevance” is something less tangible but in the long run more valuable – a surer sense of the possibilities latent in our present condition.’³⁴

Rather than generalisations, the chapters explore particular themes through the history of a building, a number of different buildings or an area – bringing out the complexities involved and breaking through superficial perceptions. Care has been taken to ensure that the chapters cover a range of relevant issues, and the chapter structure also follows a chronological logic. However, no attempt has been made to align the perspectives of the different authors from an ideological or political point of view; the reader will therefore find that the authors approach these issues from different angles, which do not always align. This heterogeneous collection of points of view is part of the intention and quality of this publication. This approach would be compromised by any attempt at an overarching summary. The chapters mobilise London’s past from varied perspectives, commenting on design, social, economic and policy issues, and underlining the key lesson that solutions to the crisis need to address all these concerns. We hope that these in-depth perspectives can provide insights and inspiration to others interested in housing, particularly those who play a role in contributing directly towards solutions to the crisis, such as planners, politicians, activists, journalists or architects. Since the housing crisis is not only a London issue but also a global problem – with many similarities in other metropolitan regions – the book should also be of interest to those studying housing crises in other cities around the world.