Cities, Housing and Profits

Originally published in 1988, this book documents and explains the emergence of flat ‘break-ups’ – the sale of individual owner occupation of blocks of flats which were previously privately rented and which played a major role in the transformation of the private housing market in London since the 1960s. The book shows that the flat break-up market in London was not a unique phenomenon but one of the most geographically concentrated manifestations of the trend for sales from private renting to owner occupation which has been established in the UK since the 1920s. The interrelationship between the causes of the decline of the privately rented sector in Britain and the features specific to the flat market comprises the second theme of the book.