Abstract
Social relations in contemporary society cannot be understood without examining property relations. The life chances of individuals, the broad patterns of economic and social inequality, the institutions, culture and ideology in present-day western societies, all reflect fundamental characteristics of the institution of private property and the differential distribution of productive resources.
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Notes and References
Some of the most acute observations on the institution of private property are found in the work of C. B. Macpherson. See his article ‘Capitalism and the Changing Concept of Property’, pp. 104–25, in E. Kamenka and R. S. Neale, Feudalism, Capitalism and Beyond (London: Edward Arnold, 1975).
M. Weber, Economy and Society (University of California Press, 1978) p. 928.
See, for instance, H. Richardson, J. Vipond and R. Furbey, Housing and Urban Spatial Structure (Farnborough: Saxon House, 1975).
C. Peach (ed.), Urban Social Segregation (London: Longman, 1975).
J. Parry Lewis, Building Cycles and Britain’s Economic Growth (London: Macmillan, 1965).
Of the 200 landlords we interviewed as part of our project, 54 per cent had inherited some or all of the properties they owned.
This is the theme Thernstrom explores when looking at the pattern of owner-occupation among migrants to the USA in the nineteenth century. S. Thernstrom, Poverty and Progress: Social Mobility in a Nineteenth-Century City (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974).
T. H. Marshall, Sociology at the Crossroads (London: Heinemann, 1963) p. 239.
We have discussed the traditional powers of landlords in a forthcoming article, ‘The Social World of Petty Property’, in P. Hollowell (ed.), Property and Social Relations (London: Heinemann, 1982).
M. Harloe (ed.), Proceedings of the Conference on Urban Change and Conflict (London: Centre for Environmental Studies, 1975).
Elliott and McCrone, ‘The Social World of Petty Property’.
See J. Rose, in Investors Chronicle, 21 December 1979.
J. Lorimer The Developers (Toronto: James Lorimer, 1978).
L. Gertler and R. Crowley, Changing Canadian Cities: the Next 25 Years (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1977), show that Canada’s rate of urban growth has outstripped that of any other western nation since 1945.
O. Marriott, The Property Boom (London: Pan Books, 1967).
Marriot, ibid; S. Jenkins, Landlords to London: Story of a Capital and its Growth (London: Constable, 1975).
Counter Information Services, The Recurrent Crisis of London: Anti-report on the Property Developers (London: Constable/CIS, 1973).
Marriott, The Property Boom, p. 21.
There is a very real need for research on land-assembly operations, as indeed there is for general studies of the construction and development industry in Britain.
Lorimer, The Developers, passim.
The Guardian, 16 June 1972.
Gerson Berger, Investors Chronicle, 6 May 1977, p. 499.
See the report by the Benwell CDP, Benwell’s Hidden Property Companies (Newcastle, 1976).
See the Milner Holland findings, Report of the Committee on Housing in Greater London, Cmnd 2604 (London: HMSO, 1965).
The Holloway Neighbourhood Law Centre report, ‘David and Goliath’ (Barnsbury, 1973) (no page number).
See Marriott, The Property Boom, p. 177.
Geoffrey Wilson, ‘Government Recognises the Role of the Developer’, Investors Chronicle, 9 November 1979, p. 13.
Some discussion of Edinburgh’s property companies is contained in our paper, ‘Landlords in Edinburgh: Some Preliminary Findings’, Sociological Review, 23 (3), 1975. The same point was made in Benwell CDP’s Benwell’s Hidden Property Companies, p. 17.
J. Rose, Investors Chronicle, 21 December 1979.
R. Minns, Pension Funds and British Capitalism (London: Heinemann, 1980).
A useful analysis of changing tenure patterns in England and Wales is provided in Central Statistical Office, Social Trends (London: HMSO, 1979).
B. Berger, Working Class Suburb (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960). For appraisal of the British versions of the arguments, see J. H. Goldthorpe et al., The Affluent Worker: Political Attitudes and Behaviour (Cambridge University Press, 1968).
One of the earliest studies was R. Durant, Watling: a Survey of Social Life on a New Housing Estate (London: P. S. King, 1939), and in the 1950s and 1960s other accounts of local communities complemented her discussion. See T. Lupton and D. Mitchell, Neighbourhood and Community (Liverpool University Press, 1954).
P. Collison, The Cutteslowe Walls (London: Faber & Faber, 1963).
M. Stacey, Tradition and Change (Oxford University Press, 1960).
N. Elias and J. Scotson, The Established and the Outsiders (London: Cass, 1962).
See, for instance, K. Young and J. Kramer, ‘Local Exclusionary Policies in Britain: the Case of Suburban Defence in a Metropolitan System’, in K. Cox, Urbanization and Conflict in Market Societies (London: Methuen, 1978).
P. Saunders, Urban Politics: a Sociological Interpretation (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978).
J. Rex and R. Moore, Race, Community and Conflict: a Study of Sparkbrook (Oxford University Press, 1967).
J. Rex, ‘The Sociology of the Zone of Transition’, in R. Pahl (ed.), Readings in Urban Sociology (Oxford: Pergamon, 1968).
R. Haddon, ‘The Location of West Indians in the London Housing Market’, New Atlantis, 2 (1), 1970.
P. Saunders, ‘Domestic Property and Social Class’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2 (2), 1978, p. 238. The argument also appears as chapter 2 in his book Urban Politics: a Sociological Interpretation (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979).
R. Barrell and M. Farmer, ‘Homes or Jobs: Maggie’s choice’, The Observer, 21 October 1979. This same theme has also been discussed in the broader economic arguments of H. Leyer and G. Edwards, in two articles in the Sunday Times, 2 November and 9 November 1980, where they claim that the very favourable rates of return on home ownership, and property more generally, have done much to limit the flows of capital to Britain’s ailing productive industries.
Central Statistical Office, Social Trends (London: HMSO, 1974).
See the Investors Chronicle, 7 November 1980.
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© 1982 Brian Elliott and David McCrone
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Elliott, B., McCrone, D. (1982). Market Forces and Property Relations. In: The City. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16925-2_6
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