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  • Published: 1 June 2017
  • ISBN: 9780141985008
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 144

Big Capital

Who Is London For?




Revealing exactly what is causing London's housing crisis - and what can be done

London is facing the worst housing crisis in modern times, with knock-on effects for the rest of the UK. Despite the desperate shortage of housing, tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of affordable homes are being pulled down, replaced by luxury apartments aimed at foreign investors. In this ideological war, only market solutions to housing - which is a public good - are considered, which paradoxically makes the situation worse, because the market responds to the needs of global capital rather than ordinary people needing homes to live in. In politically uncertain times, the housing crisis has become a key driver creating and fuelling the inequalities of a divided nation. Anna Minton cuts through the complexities, jargon and spin to give a clear-sighted account of how we got into this mess and how we can get out of it.

  • Published: 1 June 2017
  • ISBN: 9780141985008
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 144

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Praise for Big Capital

Fierce, incisive, important. Anyone who lives or works in a building should read this book

Will Self

Powerfully written ... It's hard not to come away with a fresh sense of outrage

Matthew Partridge, Moneyweek

A studied, sustained attack on a market that has been mishandled by successive governments for 40 years, not because politicians have been unable to remedy it but because it has been expedient not to. It makes for painful - yet compelling - reading

Nathan Brooker, Financial Times

Anna Minton goes digging into the housing crisis in London and beyond. She gives us an account that indicates the crisis was made through decisions and wilful distortions ... reads like a sort of murder mystery, fully exposed

Saskia Sassen, author of Expulsions

Diligent and determined ... Eye-opening ... Minton builds a powerful case ... A call to imagine what is politically possible

Richard Godwin, Evening Standard

Cutting through the jargon and spin [Minton] argues that housing is a human right, not purely a financial asset, and offers clear-sighted solutions

Antonia Charlesworth, Big Issue

Essential reading .... As attempts to address the crisis are still inadequate - indeed, some government policies are making it worse - and as it shows little sign of improving in the near future, the facts of this human catastrophe can't be stated too much or too strongly. The first achievement of Anna Minton's book Big Capital is to do just that

Rowan Moore, Observer

Timely and relevant ... I can't recommend it enough

Josie Long

Big Capital adds to what must be a commitment to change. It lays out clearly that the struggle for space will be at the top of the agenda within large cities

Lisa Mckenzie, Research Fellow in the Department of Sociology, London School of Economics