Markets, States and Housing Provision: Four European Growth Regions Compared

by James Barlow, James Barlow

This study compares housing provision over the 1980s in high growth regions in Britain (Berkshire), France (Southern Greater Paris and Toulouse) and Sweden (Northern Greater Stockholm). The results show higher levels of efficiency in the Swedish case, and to a lesser extent in the French areas, produced by state intervention to open up housing land and finance markets. This has counteracted market tendencies to short term planning, underinvestment speculative behaviour and boom/slump patterns. It has also allowed diversity in housing production where markets fail to recognise the longer term social and economic benefits of a variety of produce and tenures.

88 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1992

About the author

James Barlow was a British novelist, born on 1 December 1921 in Birmingham, England. The author of thirteen novels and one work of non-fiction, he died suddenly at the age of 51 in Ireland on 30 January 1973.