Dimensions
162 x 240 x 35mm
When did a house stop just being somewhere to live?
We all need a roof over our heads. But in recent decades, especially in the UK, property has been seen increasingly as a nest-egg, a money-spinner, a source of wealth, inextricably bound up with our aspirations and our anxieties. Could our dreams be about to melt into thin air?
Radical and passionate, based on startling new research, All That is Solid argues that housing is a defining issue of our times: the heart of the financial crisis and a barometer for what's broken in our society. The story of housing, Danny Dorling reveals, is a story of poverty and affluence, wealth and class, boom and bust, profit and loss. From the London borough that's just broken the £1 million-average barrier to empty new apartment blocks in Sheffield, from families living in b&bs to landlords renting out sheds, and further afield to so many unoccupied newly built suburbs in Spain and ghost towns in the US, he shows how we got to our current crisis - and what we can do about it.
Rejecting the now widespread idea that building more homes is the solution, Dorling offers a far more radical proposition. Inequality, he argues, is the true root of our problems, and only by beginning progressively to separate housing from wealth can we end them. Here he lays out practical, inspiring, achievable steps that will enable us to feel we're on solid ground again.
