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This book is concerned with examining the current state of knowledge concerning urban housing and residential structure in cities of advanced capitalist countries. In the subsequent chapters we will consider this state of knowledge in terms of the developments within four broad approaches as outlined in Table 1.1.
TABLE I.I Four approaches to housing and residential structure | Approach | Wider social theory | Areas of enquiry | Exemplar writers |
| |
| I ecological | human ecology | spatial patterns of residential structure | Burgess (1925) |
| 2 neo-classical | neo-classical economics | utility maximisation, consumer choice | Alonso(1964) |
| 3 institutional | Weberian sociology | | |
| managerialism | | gatekeepers, housing constraints | Pahl(1975) |
| locational conflict | | power groupings, conflict | Form (1954) |
| 4 Marxist | historical materialism | housing as a commodity, reproduction of labour force | Harvey (1973, part II) Castells (1977a) |
| |
The ecological approach can be traced back to the writings of the Chicago school in the first third of the twentieth century. It is mainly concerned with the spatial patterns of residential structure while its theoretical underpinnings were initially derived from human ecology. The neo-classical approach, as the name suggests, draws its theoretical guidance from neo-classical economics and it is very largely concerned with the analysis of utility maximisation on the part of individual consumers in an atomistic housing market. The institutional approach has roots which straddle the Atlantic. In North America developments in political science have been adopted by some social scientists to focus on the institutional structure of land and housing markets around the broad themes of power and conflict. In Britain, developments in Weberian sociology associated with the work of R. E. Pahl have been used by some urban sociologists and geographers to analyse the institutional structure of housing with reference to the role of urban managers and the nature of housing constraints imposed on different types of households. The last few years have also witnessed the development of an explicitly Marxist approach to housing which draws upon historical materialism to focus on, amongst other topics, the position of housing as a commodity in a system of commodity production and the role of housing as an essential element in the reproduction of the labour force. Two important authors in this approach are Castells and Harvey.
The diversity of approaches to the study of housing is partly a manifestation of the complex nature of the topic. Housing is a hetereogeneous, durable and essential consumer good; an indirect indicator of status and income differences between consumers; a map of social relations within the city; an important facet of residential structure; a source of bargaining and conflict between various power groupings; and a source of profit to different institutions and agents involved in the production, consumption and exchange of housing. Such diverse characteristics make the study of housing a complex matter amenable to various interpretations. This draws the study of housing into the arena of interdisciplinary interaction and competing social theories. The particular area of reality which we call housing can be likened to a complex crystal with many faces. When held up to the light a particular pattern of reflected light is seen. Change the orientation of the crystal and a completely different pattern of reflected light is formed. In one sense the different approaches to housing can be seen as the different orientations of this multifaceted object producing different patterns when held up to the explanatory light.
These approaches differ because they draw their theoretical guidance and sustenance from various wider social theories. For example, the neo-classical approach draws upon the Weltanschauung of neo-classical economics, the institutional approach is broadly based on the Weberian tradition while the Marxist approach gets its view of reality from historical materialism. The distinctions between the various approaches reflect not only differences in emphasis or type of questions posed, but they also reflect larger differences in the interpretation of facts and phenomena and in the explanation of social events. It is not simply differences between the orientation of the housing crystal but pronounced disagreement over the explanatory light to be used. The most significant disagreement occurs between Marxist and non-Marxist approaches. This gulf is not simply an area of disagreement over the interpretation of ‘objective’ facts, it is a fundamental difference in the pursuit of scientific knowledge.
A crude distinction can be drawn between the earlier developed ecological and neo-classical approaches which focus on equilibrium conditions, housing choices and social harmony and the more recent resurgence of interest in institutional and Marxist approaches which focus on disequilibrium conditions, housing constraints and social conflict. This switch in focus, which can be loosely dated to the late 1960s and early 1970s, is of course related to the nature of the wider social theories being brought to bear on the analysis of housing. However, this raises the question of why different social theories were being used at that point in time. At the risk of oversimplification, we would suggest that the reasons fundamentally lie in the changing nature of many advanced capitalist countries. The late 1960s witnessed the end of the post-war economic boom which unmasked the latent social conflict between different social groups and between capital and labour. This conflict, best expressed in the student and worker riots of France in 1968, called into question the implicit social consensus of contemporary social theories, and attention began to be paid to the conflict models derived from Marx and Weber. Within the housing sector the worsening housing problems in many inner city areas and the obvious constraints imposed by fiscal and government measures on entry into the various tenure categories raised doubts about the consumer sovereignty notions of neo-classical and ecological approaches. At this time, then, the social and housing scenes were receptive to radical shifts in the character of explanatory frameworks. Within academia these shifts were endorsed by the young Turks of the different disciplines eager to carve out a name for themselves. However, the desire for academic advancement only explains why these shifts take place; the direction of these shifts is largely guided by the changes in objective conditions which highlight the inadequacy of contemporary wisdom.
Paradigms and paradigm shifts
The term paradigm was first used by Kuhn (1962) to refer to a conceptual schema which defines both the objects and methods of investigation. For Kuhn, the history of certain subdisciplines in natural science is a history of the transition from one paradigm to another prompted by the inability of the previous paradigm to explain certain recurring facts and phenomena. In the course of normal scientific activity most natural scientists work within the guidelines of one paradigm, but as anomalies and unexplained facts are encountered then a revolutionary upheaval takes place, a paradigm shift, in which a new and better paradigm is fashioned to explain these anomalies and unanswered questions. This new paradigm then provides the guidelines for subsequent scientific enquiry until this paradigm, in turn, is faced with unexplained and unexplainable facts.
It has become increasingly fashionable to use the concepts of paradigm and paradigm shift in discussions of the history of ideas in the social sciences. Many authors, for example, have argued that the change in human geography from the ideographic to the more nomothetic approach of the ‘new Geography’ which occurred in the 1960s can be seen in terms of a paradigm shift. A similar use of the concept of paradigm shift has been applied to the history of economics by Johnston (1971). Can we use these concepts of paradigms and paradigm shift in the present discussion of different approaches to housing? Does the shift in the emphasis of housing research in the late 1960s to disequilibrium, constraints and social conflict constitute a paradigm shift? We would argue that such an application of Kuhn’s ideas would be incorrect.
In the first place there are serious doubts about the validity of Kuhn’s ideas in general which need not detain us here (but see Tribe, 1973). More importantly, even if we ignore these criticisms, such an application would be a corruption of Kuhn’s ideas. Kuhn was at pains to point out that the concepts of paradigm and paradigm did not necessarily apply to the social sciences. In the social sciences there are a variety of competing social theories which at any one time will be used by different social scientists. Although one theory may be dominant, it does not pre-empt the use of others. In general, there is less purchase for the creation and maintenance of academic orthodoxy in the social sciences than in the natural sciences, and deviants from the consensus position, far from being ignored and abused, are often lauded. Paradigms, by definition, are hegemonic except in periods of paradigm shifts, but in the social sciences there are, in Kuhnian terms, multiple competing paradigm candidates in a stage of pre-paradigm development. Besides, the concept of a paradigm as used by Kuhn only applies to subdisciplines of natural science, but in the social sciences we are dealing with broad social theories, such as historical materialism, which span the present disciplinary boundaries. Historical materialism cannot be relegated to the status of a paradigm.
In the analysis of housing research we are looking at the application of different social theories to a particular area of reality. These theories have been established elsewhere and, although they may dominate in a particular discipline, they do not dominate research into housing and residential structure. For example, although the neo-classical school dominates contemporary economics, it does not dominate the housing research field. Within this area there is no hegemonic social theory, it is a poly-paradigmatic field of enquiry. Since the concepts of paradigm and paradigm shift are inappropriate for the social sciences in general and the housing research field in particular we will continue to use the term ‘approaches’ to refer to the application of different social theories to the analysis of housing.
Space and human geography
This book is written by geographers very largely for other geographers. However, this does not imply that there will be a desperate attempt to isolate a geographical angle on every matter. In other textbooks this is usually signalled by the extensive use of maps. We would argue that the concern with space, spatial relationships and spatial patterns in human geography has too often been advanced with scant regard to the societal background of spatial organisation. We would further argue that it is impossible to generate spatial theories independent of social theories. Spatial patterns and social processes are interwoven in a complex pattern; social relations are established through spatial relationships and spatial structure is formed by social processes. We cannot understand either spatial patterns or social processes without a consideration of the other. The concern with space in this book will therefore not be reflected in an attempt to forge a distinctly spatial theory, rather it will be a matter of emphasis; we will attempt to shine light more intensely on some parts of the social-spatial mosaic than others.
Aims and objectives
Our aim in this book will be to consider the different approaches to housing and residential structure in terms of the underlying assumptions, the character of exemplar studies and the type of questions left unanswered. Given the diversity of approaches and the often violent disagreement over fundamental assumptions we cannot offer a synthesis of the field, even if such a goal was desirable, but we will hopefully throw into relief the basic sources of disagreement and the main areas of controversy and consensus. Textbooks are too often written to establish a new paradigm or synthesis; this is not our intention. Disagreement between researchers is not a sign of ignorance or confusion to be cleared up by some eclectic paradigm-maker or synthesiser. For the purposes of informed debate it is essential to make the differences between approaches clearer; it is just as important to sort out fundamental lines of disagreement as it is to build conceptual bridges.
The structure of the book reflects our intentions. In Part I we focus on the essentially demand-orientated approaches of human ecology and neo-classical economics. Chapters 2 and 3 respectively discuss each of these approaches. In chapter 4 we discuss more recent advances from this demand-orientated perspective associated with behavioural considerations and urban modelling. Since these approaches have been discussed thoroughly in many other textbooks our exposition will focus on the underlying assumptions of these approaches rather than a blow by blow account of each single development.
In chapter 5 we briefly summarise the criticisms that have been levelled at these approaches and discuss the recent emergence of the institutional approach. So far, the institutional approach has consisted of an inchoate collection of individual case studies. In Part II we therefore attempt to generalise from these studies by hanging a discussion of the institutional approaches on the twin pegs of an analysis of private sector and public sector housing in Bri...
