Against a century-long trend of decline, the private rented sector grew significantly during the 1990s. This book explores why and looks at the consequences for tenants and landlords, as well as the wider implications for housing policy. Written by legal and policy experts, the book brings together, for the first time in over a decade, leading-edge research on the newly deregulated private rented sector. It provides background information about the recent history and development of the private rented sector and explores the changing nature of the sector. The book will be invaluable reading for law, public policy, housing and social policy students. Housing practitioners and policy makers will also find it a stimulating read.

The 1915 Rent Strikes in Glasgow, along with similar campaigns across the UK, catalysed rent restrictions and eventually public housing as a right, with a legacy of progressive improvement in UK housing through the central decades of the 20th century. With the decimation of social housing and the resurgence of a profoundly exploitative private housing market, the contemporary political economy of housing now shares many distressing features with the situation one hundred years ago. Starting with a re-appraisal of the Rent Strikes, this book asks what housing campaigners can learn today from a proven organisational victory for the working class. A series of investigative accounts from scholar-activists and housing campaign groups across the UK charts the diverse aims, tactics and strategies of current urban resistance, seeking to make a vital contribution to the contemporary housing question in a time of crisis.