Housing Policy in the Risk Archipelago: Toward Anticipatory and Holistic Government

ABSTRACT

Housing policy analysts should draw more than they do on ideas and work on the concept of risk, for four reasons. First, there is a set of tools in the literature on cultures of risk perception that can help to explain the divisions, trends and tendencies in the politics of housing. For example, these tools can help explain why some housing risks become salient, and others recede. Second, ideas from the field of risk management are useful ways in which to think about strategy. Third, at least in Britain and perhaps in other countries, the agenda for the design of executive government is shifting beyond that set in the 1980s in new directions that are best explained in terms of changing cultures of risk perception and management. Finally, in Britain, the language of risk cultures provides us with a way of thinking about the politics of housing may change over the lifetime of the Labour Government recently elected. The paper explores in turn each of these reasons for speaking the language of risk.