The Housing Crisis Paradox: Analysing the crisis amidst the social and political narratives

Lipscombe, Rachael (2025) The Housing Crisis Paradox: Analysing the crisis amidst the social and political narratives. Doctoral thesis, University of Gloucestershire.

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Abstract

The housing conversation is littered with normative narratives. These are the elements of the discourse which are so routinely accepted that we take their justification for granted, and consequently, we routinely fail to rigorously test and challenge their validity. The housing crisis is one such narrative, and alongside it, our cultural embeddedness in housing commodification. Such a narrative problem for housing is important, particularly when it is not recognised as such, for it allows the conversation to conflate and obfuscate the issues. This thesis identifies both the representation of the crisis as a supply-based problem and our aspirational preference for ownership tenure as paradoxes, which serve only to entrench housing as a wicked problem and close down opportunities for problem resolution. This study applied a mixed methodological approach to explore how such normative narratives hold up under evidence-based scrutiny, particularly in light of the policydriven narrative which centres upon a ‘broken market’ for housing at the heart of the housing crisis. Collating a unique data set from more than 60 national statistical collections and thematically reviewing the responses of 128 observers of the Mass Observation Project on the issues of homelessness and social mobility; this study identified distinct dissonances between the evidence and both a policy-driven narrative for housing focussed upon aspirational issues of ownership, and a publicperception based narrative concerned with an absolute housing need. Here this thesis offers an important contribution to the future of the housing conversation, by evidencing the case for alternative engagements in housing. Building from this collective evidence base, this thesis then presents an alternate narrative centred upon a continuum of housing issues between dichotomies of ‘need’ and ‘aspiration’. This is offered as a platform from which a renewed conversation in housing might be built. In a further contribution to the knowledge bank, this thesis then concludes with a tested proposal for community engagement in housing which reimagines the market mechanism for the distribution of property wealth and seeks to break down cultural barriers in tenure.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Keywords:	Housing crisis
Divisions:	Land and Property Management
Depositing User:	Ms Susan Baker
Date Deposited:	23 Oct 2025 17:55
Last Modified:	23 Oct 2025 17:55
URI:	https://rau.repository.guildhe.ac.uk/id/eprint/16974

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