Article

Local elites and social control: Building council houses in Stirling between the wars

Details

Citation

Smyth J & Robertson D (2013) Local elites and social control: Building council houses in Stirling between the wars. Urban History, 40 (2), pp. 336-354. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963926813000072

Abstract
This article examines the role played by local councillors in constructing new housing in Scotland during the inter-war period. Rather than view local authorities as simply the objective agency of central government's ambitions to construct council houses, we argue that the self-interest and motivations of councillors have to be recognized as significant factors in this process. It is argued also that the concerns of private landlords were neither ignored nor sacrificed in the rush to build new housing. Rather, given that councils remained dominated by local business men, many of whom were private landlords, councillors acted in ways to protect their own material and class interests. In so doing, they consciously, if implicitly, shaped the social geography of twentieth-century Scotland.

Journal
Urban History: Volume 40, Issue 2

StatusPublished
FundersJoseph Rowntree Foundation
Publication date31/05/2013
Publication date online15/02/2013
URLhttp://hdl.handle.net/1893/19753
PublisherCambridge University Press
ISSN0963-9268

People (1)

Professor Douglas Robertson

Professor Douglas Robertson

Honorary Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences