Overview

The 1915 Rent Strikes in Glasgow, along with similar campaigns across the UK, catalysed rent restrictions and eventually public housing as a right, with a legacy of progressive improvement in UK housing through the central decades of the 20th century. With the decimation of social housing and the resurgence of a profoundly exploitative private housing market, the contemporary political economy of housing now shares many distressing features with the situation one hundred years ago. Starting with a re-appraisal of the Rent Strikes, this book asks what housing campaigners can learn today from a proven organisational victory for the working class. A series of investigative accounts from scholar-activists and housing campaign groups across the UK charts the diverse aims, tactics and strategies of current urban resistance, seeking to make a vital contribution to the contemporary housing question in a time of crisis.

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9781786605740

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Reviews

This compelling book reminds us that decent housing has been fought for and won through struggle, by thousands of people in grass-roots campaigns, in direct action and protest, over one hundred years. It demonstrates the achievements and the continuing urgency of need in the long campaign for a fairer housing system. -- Quintin Bradley, Senior Lecturer in Planning and Housing, Leeds Beckett University This book covers some vital issues for housing campaigners everywhere: rent strikes, the role of women, the myth of housing associations and social cleansing to name but four. As Neil Gray reminds us, it arrives at a key moment. The demand for decent, secure, truly affordable and safe homes for all is growing, but not yet won. Rent and its Discontents will help. -- Glyn Robbins, Housing Worker and Campaigner

This compelling book reminds us that decent housing has been fought for and won through struggle, by thousands of people in grass-roots campaigns, in direct action and protest, over one hundred years. It demonstrates the achievements and the continuing urgency of need in the long campaign for a fairer housing system.--Quintin Bradley, Senior Lecturer in Planning and Housing, Leeds Beckett University This book covers some vital issues for housing campaigners everywhere: rent strikes, the role of women, the myth of housing associations and social cleansing to name but four. As Neil Gray reminds us, it arrives at a key moment. The demand for decent, secure, truly affordable and safe homes for all is growing, but not yet won. Rent and its Discontents will help.--Glyn Robbins, Housing Worker and Campaigner

This compelling book reminds us that decent housing has been fought for and won through struggle, by thousands of people in grass-roots campaigns, in direct action and protest, over one hundred years. It demonstrates the achievements and the continuing urgency of need in the long campaign for a fairer housing system. -- Quintin Bradley, Senior Lecturer in Planning and Housing, Leeds Beckett University This book covers some vital issues for housing campaigners everywhere: rent strikes, the role of women, the myth of housing associations and social cleansing to name but four. As Neil Gray reminds us, it arrives at a key moment. The demand for decent, secure, truly affordable and safe homes for all is growing, but not yet won. Rent and its Discontents will help. -- Glyn Robbins, Housing Worker and Campaigner The importance of this edited volume is threefold. Firstly, it offers a critical re-reading of historical rent struggles, secondly, it encourages comparisons between diverse rental issues and conditions for tenants' organising, and thirdly, it promotes situated knowledge-production that combines academic and activist expertise, all of which are essential to understand and politicise rent as key to contemporary forms of capital accumulation and housing enclosures. -- Mara Ferreri, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona Essential reading for anyone interested in the history of tenant activism and contemporary housing struggles. Accessible and engaging, Rent and its Discontents explores the hidden continuum of tenant struggles in Britain and Ireland and thinks thorough the relevance of these campaigns for those fighting today for decent, secure and affordable rented homes. -- Rebecca Searle, Senior Lecturer in Humanities, University of Brighton

This compelling book reminds us that decent housing has been fought for and won through struggle, by thousands of people in grass-roots campaigns, in direct action and protest, over one hundred years. It demonstrates the achievements and the continuing urgency of need in the long campaign for a fairer housing system. -- Quintin Bradley, Senior Lecturer in Planning and Housing, Leeds Beckett University

Author Information

Neil Gray is an urban researcher, writer and lecturer and a long-term housing activist. He is currently working as a Research Associate at the University of Glasgow.

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