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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 February 2013

JAMES SMYTH  and
DOUGLAS ROBERTSON
JAMES SMYTH
Affiliation:
School of History and Politics, University of Stirling, FK9 4LA, UK
DOUGLAS ROBERTSON
Affiliation:
School of Applied Social Science, University of Stirling, FK9 4LA, UK
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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.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , May 2013 , pp. 336 - 354
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013

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References

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