Low-demand Housing and Unpopular Neighbourhoods Under Labour

Alex Fenton and Ruth Lupton

Published 25 June 2013

When the last Labour government took office in 1997, pledging to combat social exclusion, renew neighbourhoods and eliminate ‘no-go’ areas, a critical issue was to address the phenomenon of ‘low-demand’ housing and unpopular neighbourhoods, which was becoming particularly acute in certain Northern and Midlands towns and cities. Power and Mumford (1999) in their book The Slow Death of Great Cities, set out the nature of the problem, demonstrating how ‘low-demand’ and vacancies at the neighbourhood level arose from a set of related features of housing, population and economy.