Aldabbous, Abdullah Ahmed;
(2024)
The case of affordable housing provision in the Square Mile.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
Abstract
The subject of this PhD thesis is affordable housing provision in the City of London in relation to post-war urban planning and socio-economic factors operating at national, regional and local levels. It has long been obvious that the building of new affordable housing in the City of London has been deprioritised and diverted to lands outside its boundaries, whereas provision within the boundaries is exclusively for the wealthier private sector. This limit on supply, coupled with the cumulative loss of existing affordable housing stock from the early 1980s onwards, has transformed the City of London into a socially exclusive space with inflated housing demand for those on lower incomes. The focus is therefore on policy conflicts between the desire to sustain the City’s position as a premier global financial centre through business-oriented urban governance, which then limits the provision of affordable housing, and the London-wide imperative to erect sufficient dwellings for those who work in the services upon which the City survives. This thesis examines the forces that contributed to the contraction of affordable housing stock within the boundaries of the City of London – these include the processes of loss, such as through the Right to Buy policy, as well as lack of supply, such as through planning policies that aimed to protect against disruptions to the City’s business function. The thesis also examines the effectiveness of the mechanisms adopted by the City of London Corporation to address the contraction and housing needs, including S106 agreements. In addition, it introduces site-specific design-based analysis to explore the possibilities of overcoming current constraints, by suggesting some opportunities for building new forms of affordable housing such as through densifying existing estates in the City of London. It then scrutinises these design suggestions by consulting stakeholders and end-users to provide feedback for future proposals.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | The case of affordable housing provision in the Square Mile |
| Language: | English |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > The Bartlett School of Architecture |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10191566 |
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