Housing Tenure is Less Important Now for Distinguishing Between Social Classes

The last quarter of a century has seen a significant change in Dundee’s housing tenure. In 1981, less than 40% of dwelling stock was owner occupied. By 2010, this had risen to 61%. Although there has been a similar pattern of change across much of Europe, the change has been particularly dramatic in Dundee, and indeed Scotland. Mirroring changes in cultural attitudes toward home ownership, two structural factors have contributed to this shift. The introduction of the right to buy for public authority tenants in 1979 coupled with the decline of local authority new build, and the increased contribution of private sector house building.

One of the most prevalent forms of discrimination is through housing. While modern discrimination is typically difficult to figure out the exact intentions of the person accused of discrimination, such as a boss not choosing a minority to fill a management role, discrimination in housing has continued to be more obvious. The reason why housing is so important is because where a person lives dictates the school the resident’s children go to, the infrastructure such as hospitals, parks and libraries, and also availability of employment. Many of the housing inequalities have been caused by the Federal government such as the national appraisal system and subsidizing suburban areas, and not enforcing abolishing restricted covenants.

Identifying economic class goes beyond determining how much money a person makes; it is also defined by where a person lives. The lowest people on the economic scale are assumed to live in central cities; the middle-low income people live in the inner-ring suburbs, and the wealthiest live in the exclusive outer-ring suburbs. The authors point out that as one moves outward from the central city to the inner-ring to outer-ring suburbs incomes rise

“You have to be twice as good as them to get half of what they have.” Was a famous quote said by Kerry Washington on her hit show Scandal. The quote was said in reference to Kerry having to work twice as hard to get half of what her Caucasian co-workers have. This quote relates to a black person everyday struggle. As a black person, they are constantly competing for equality with their Caucasian counterparts. Equality in things such as the work-force, food industry but more importantly in the housing area. Housing discrimination amongst blacks has been one of the biggest issues in the United States. Because of the discrimination, Blacks still have a greater struggle finding housing more than their equally qualified Caucasian counterparts. The

Another topic demonstrated in the book is inequality at home. For many, home symbolizes stability and physical security; for others it signifies an investment, an identity, or a crucial mark of citizenship. Yet, not every home and community offers all of these advantages, and not everyone takes the same path home. In recent years, buying a home has become more difficult as both wealth and race matter. High cost of home ownership is just one of the many reasons underlying the stratification of secure housing in a strong

It was 1947, eight years before Mississippi lynched Emmett Till. The Great Migration was a mass exodus of six million African Americans out of the South that spanned most of the 20th century. Blacks did not journey north seeking better wages and work. Rather, they were fleeing the acquisitive warlords of the South. They were seeking the protection of the law. From the 1930-60s Blacks across the country had no access to legitimate home mortgages. This happened through means both legal and extralegal. In 1935, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB) asked Home Owners ' Loan Corporation (HOLC) to look at 239 cities and create "residential security maps." The purpose was to show the level of security for real-estate investments in each city. The resulting redlining caused a large increase in residential racial segregation and urban decay. Redlining denies services to residents of certain areas based on racial or ethnic criteria. John McKnight, a sociologist and community activist, coined the term in the late 1960s. The term comes from the practice of marking a red line on a map to delineate the area where banks would not invest. In addition to redlining, many Chicago Whites employed other measures to keep their neighborhoods segregated and to discourage non-white home buyers, including restrictive covenants and even bombings. Further, such local measures received broader support, including from a prominent national real estate

Firstly, the Have Nots, or the working class, could barely afford housing. “Most urban resident, however, could

According to the book The Conditions of the Working Class in England by German socialist Friedrich Engels, many of the overcrowded neighborhoods they lived in were very slum and filthy with unfinished roads and no gutters or drains. (Doc. 7) Additionally, a picture taken of the working class’ neighborhood in London, England in 1872 shows that the their houses were very small and in compact living spaces while being dirty and unsuitable for anyone to live properly in them. (Doc. 9) This shows that the working class was not wealthy and the industrial factory owners did not provide them proper places to live. According to the book written by a French politician and economist in 1844 titled Manchester, the people that work in the factories have good living conditions while being clothed and well feed and being employed at a nice job. (Doc. 6) However, this excerpt was from a French politician and economist who probably never experienced the life of the lower class let alone the life of someone that can’t get an education and works in

Throughout the years, social classes have been bolder where people distance themselves from the poor creating buildings, parks, areas that can’t be afforded by the poor. These approaches are theoretically known as obstructive agreements, zoning regulations, building codes, and political regulator over extents of the regions of a nation. With these methods, sections are made within towns which dictate the areas that are only accessible to the middle to high class and areas that could be inhabited by the low class people.

Social class is defined as a broad group in society having common economic, cultural, or political status. Where somebody comes from can effect somebody's decision to become involved with that person or not, can effect whether that person will be hired for a job or not and can often effect they way one is looked at and treated by society. Either way, class distinction is always evident within society.

British society is split into hierarchical categories with “higher” “middle” and “lower working” class. The British class structure is shaped like a pyramid cut into three

This is due to the fact that these properties represent a secure shelter for the population, which is considered a basic human need. However the housing market is believed to provide “normal goods”, meaning that as people’s income increases so does their demand for housing (Masron, 2013). Due to the socioeconomic background of a large portion of the population a large segment of the market would be considered a highly differentiated product. Location of the property within London tends to play a large part of the product’s differentiation, as some areas are more desirable than others.

A place to call home, a concept that much of society aspires to. A home is a sanctuary, a place to raise a family; home after all, is where the heart belongs. However, does the notion that a house is make a house any less of a home than a house that is owner occupied? Housing policy during the latter part of the 20th century began to shift towards owner occupation. One policy in particular completely changed the face of housing, it brought about the biggest shake up in housing history. The Conservative Government’s ‘Right to Buy’ scheme or ‘Council House Privatisation’ as written in (Baldock, Mitton, Manning & Vickerstaff, 2012), formed part of the Housing Act 1980, the then secretary of state for the environment, Michael Heseltine, stated "This bill lays the foundations for one of the most important social revolutions of this century” (Jones, 2011). Therefore, this essay will answer the question can the “Right to Buy” policy as introduced

The basic necessity of human beings, Housing has been a global phenomenon. With the surge of urban population or in other words, the growth of urban areas, the issue of poverty, standard of living are being most debated by social activist. Affordable housing has been an issue in many of the developing nations (with examples of slum dwellers and low income group house) and also in developed countries with the low income population

The research is presented through an urban sociological-geographical perspective, citing recent studies in the US and Western Europe that suggest that urban neighborhoods are increasingly experiencing “high levels of residential segregation along the line of race and ethnicity” (Leetmaa 163). By comparison, the Tartu model is unique because it has not experienced any new immigration since 1991 (Leetmaa 163) compared to the rest of its European counterparts in the EU. Thus the pattern of segregation in Tartu reflects two major ‘ethno-linguistic’ groups that experienced preferential housing status under two different political and economic systems that are now inversed. During the Soviet period, Russian minority migrants enjoyed better housing choices under the central planning model. Today, the majority Estonian population enjoys a higher standard of living that allows for greater mobility and better housing choices in a free-market economy.