E-Book Overview
Based on intensive documentary research , this is the first full-scale study of the politics of the slum question in England between the world wars, and of associated policy and practice in the fields of housing and town planning. It is the second volume in a trilogy which began with "Slums and Slum Clearance" (Allen & Unwin 1986) and which is completed with a third volume covering the period since 1945. From the early Victorian period to the 1970s, the question of slums occupied an important place in British politics and in housing and town planning policies. The inter-war period has two major points of interest. It sees the restoration of slum clearance following a period of opposition and the onset of the first national slum clearance campaign. It reaches its climax in the plans for large-scale redevelopment made during World War II. Although slum clearance developed from nineteenth-century thought and practice, inner-city redevelopment of this kind had its intellectual origins in the 1930s. Activities such as slum clearance had a dramatic impact on those people and places affected, but political formulations of the slum question also had much wider repercussions for property and social policy. In particular, they had a major role in shaping distinctions that have marked modern British cities: between public and private housing, inner city and suburbs, house and flat. As a study of practice as well as policy, this is a major original work on a topic of widespread interest throughout the history, geography, urban studies and planning communities. It will be an indispensable source for those interested in slum conditions, redevelopment and housing practice, whether in an historical or contemporary context, and it discusses issues of international relevance. This book is intended for urban historians, historical geographers, historians of housing and planning, students and researchers in contemporary housing and planning studies.
E-Book Content
SLUMS and REDEVELOPMENT SLUMS and REDEVELOPMENT Policy and practice in England, 1918–45, with particular reference to London. J.A.Yelling Birkbeck College, University of London © J.A.Yelling This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. No reproduction without permission. All rights reserved. First published in 1992 by UCL Press This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. UCL Press Limited University College London Gower Street London WC1E 6BT The name of University College London (UCL) is a registered trade mark used by UCL Press with the consent of the owner. ISBN 0-203-21311-4 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-27021-5 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN: 1-85728-010-5 (Print Edition) A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. CONTENTS List of plates List of figures List of tables Acknowledgements vii viii ix x 1 Introduction Documentary sources 1 2 The inheritance: problems and remedies Clearance and unfit housing Overcrowding and housing supply 9 3 Reconstruction: the pattern of the future Slums and homes for heroes Re-establishing housing programmes Town planning and redevelopment 22 4 Decentralization, reconditioning and slum clearance 1923-33 The vicissitudes of slum clearance Chamberlain and reconditioning Decentralisation and the Greenwood Act 5 Money matters: property values, compensation and housing costs Prices, compensation and housing costs Politics and finance 38 57 6 Rebuilding and rehousing 1918-1933 Setting the standard Adjusting to rents Tall flats 73 7 A new deal 1933-5 The 1933 Act and the slum campaign The Moyne Report and reconditioning The 1935 Act: overcrowding and redevelopment