The emergence of a so-called 'Generation Rent' is a phenomenon that is gaining increasing prominence in political and media discourse, in recognition of the growing numbers of, in particular, young UK citizens who cannot gain access to the fabled 'property ladder'. This growing constituency are depicted as the main casualties of a UK housing crisis; victims of a combination of mushrooming house prices and undersupply which have conspired to freeze them out of owner occupation, while the level of disaffection being generated by this scenario was most recently illustrated by London’s ‘March for Homes’. The roots of this housing crisis have been exhaustively analysed, by a broad range of academic and other commentators, while many of these accounts suggest that it has largely arisen as much by design as via the caprice of markets.
A raft of interventions by
successive UK governments have facilitated and supported the increasing marketisation
and financialisation of the UK housing sector. In short, the late 1970s and
early ‘80s 'free market' shift in political and economic policy has had a
profound effect on housing. In the first instance, a newly deregulated and
expanded financial sector targeted residential property as a highly convenient
vehicle for the expansion of consumer credit. Consequently, extended mortgage
lending in a competitive market saw home ownership grow; a process accelerated
by the Thatcher government’s sell-off of council housing. In turn, expanded
mortgage lending was followed by rising house prices as private sector supply
failed to match rising demand. Against this background, potential gains from
rising prices also began to shift public perceptions, from viewing housing as
an essential utility to regarding residential 'property' as a lucrative
personal investment vehicle.
This metamorphosis of the housing
market was consolidated by the revival of the private rented sector,
as both investment class and mainstream tenure. The latter was also facilitated
by UK government policy (introduced through Housing Acts of 1988 and 1996),
that radically reduced security of tenure, and by the financial sector's
offering of new Buy to Let mortgage products aimed at amateur investors. As we
know, these developments taken together have seen a great expansion of private
renting, while the investment activities of a million or so private landlords
has been a significant factor in driving prices ever higher and squeezing out
many potential first time buyers, who have now become private sector tenants.
Government support for this scenario has also extended to providing
advantageous tax arrangements for landlords over owner occupiers.
In addition to ideological
motivations, UK governments have also become ever more reliant on the
residential property sector as an engine of economic growth, as rising house
prices have boosted consumer confidence and activity in an expanded service
sector by providing collateral for consumer credit in what has become a
substantially debt-fuelled economy.
In a number of senses the revival
of private renting has re-established some of the characteristics of the sector
that prevailed in the late 19th and early 20th century,
with the caveat that the new class of landlords are drawn from a much broader
base than the small exclusive elite who rented property to around 90 per cent
of the UK's population at that time. What is returning, however, is the spectre
of sub-standard, prohibitively expensive and, critically, insecure housing that
motivated a groundswell of political unrest in the past; the scenario that
mobilised the mid 20th century's progressive reform of UK housing
towards a mixed private/public and highly regulated form of provision. While
there has been a good deal of attention paid to rising costs and declining
standards affecting contemporary tenants, perhaps lesser attention has been
paid to the consequences of long term insecurity. It is clear that tenancies covered by the Assured Shorthold Tenancy (the majority in the sector) are wholly inconsistent with tenants’ capacity to establish a stable and secure home, given that after an initial 6 month term tenants can be arbitrarily evicted at two months notice. Evidently, this has practical implications in terms of access to workplaces, and for children of the growing number of families housed in the sector to rely on continuity with respect to schooling, where the latter can be disrupted at the whim of the landlord.
Arguably, however, less well
understood are the subtler and deeper effects of the lack of control and
predictability experienced by private sector tenants, where again the
implications for families are perhaps particularly acute. In such conditions,
maintaining friendships and community engagement can be increasingly difficult,
while there are related implications for mental health and well-being.
Psychologists have long
understood that some of the most stressful aspects of experience are founded on
our limited capacity to deal with onerous demands and complexity as well as
unpredictable and uncontrolled change. Sociologists have also long recognised
the ill effects of such conditions on the psyche and, indeed, in terms of
collective well-being. Recent discoveries of how the human brain functions are
now offering evidence that underscores these widely recognised observations.
For example, it has been demonstrated that we have a highly limited capacity to
deal with information at a conscious level while, where we are overburdened,
the consequences are experienced as significant arousal of the 'fear system'.
In terms of ’real world’ implications, this may explain why we are prone to
routinising and simplifying much of what we encounter, attempting to impose a
significant degree of control, consistency and stability in our lives. It may
even be the case that modern urban living of itself, as Georg Simmel notably
observed, challenges us in this respect. Following from this, it may be
reasonable to suggest that chronic insecurity regarding something so
fundamental as one’s home (as with employment) is liable to critically
undermine the conditions conducive to emotional stability and well-being, while
a growing body of empirical evidence also supports this perspective. In addition, once more drawing on
neuroscientific findings, it appears that there may also be a relationship
between the formation of long term memories, that are integral to the
construction of our personal biographies, and the neural processes that
orient us in geographical space. Simply put, it may be that spatial relocation,
particularly where this is also involuntary and uncontrolled, may have a subtle
but profound negative effect on our capacity to readily sustain a coherent and
consistent biography; a stable self identity.
For the reasons outlined above, a
reappraisal of the social and psychological effects as well as the more evident
practical and economic ramifications of marketised housing is perhaps long
overdue.
Read the full article in Sociological Research Online on which this blog post is based.
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