This book shows how governance regimes before the 1970s suppressed rural prospects of housing improvement and created conditions for middle-class capture. Using original archival sources to reveal the intricacies of local and national policy processes, weak rural housing performances are shown to owe more to national governance regimes than local under-performance. Looking `behind the scenes' at policy processes highlights neglected principles in national governance, and shows how investigating rural housing is fundamental to understanding the national scene. With original insights and a new analytical perspective, this volume offers evidence and conclusions that challenge mainstream assumptions in public policy, housing, rural studies and planning.

Keith Hoggart is Emeritus Professor of Geography at King’s College London. His research focuses on links between housing, migration and social change in rural areas, with policy-making and the governance of local socio-economic change as key interests. He is the author/co-author of eight books/research monographs and has edited/co-edited seven books. He graduated from the University of Salford, was a Commonwealth Scholar at the University of Toronto, and completed his PhD at King’s College London. He has been Fulbright Scholar at the University of Maryland and Temple University, and Visiting Researcher at the University of California Berkeley. He was head of King’s Department of Geography and its School of Social Science and Public Policy, and was a King’s Vice-Principal from 2005-2013.