‘Race’, housing and the city

The analysis which follows stems from a growing concern at the apparent inability of the literature, both beyond the discipline and within it, to provide a convincing theorisation of the structural position of Britain’s minority populations within the housing market. Given that large-scale post-war migration from Africa, the Caribbean and the Indian subcontinent began in the 1950s, and that significant numbers of black citizens had settled in Britain many decades earlier (Fryer 1984; Hiro 1991; May and Cohen 1974), this is somewhat surprising. Within the obvious confines of such a brief chapter, I shall endeavour to sketch out the basis for a re-evaluation of existing debates, and demonstrate how newly available empirical data can provide insights into the value (or otherwise) of various substantive theoretical positions.