The future of housing and homes

This review looks at patterns of land use for housing over the next 50 years. Both established development patterns and the way government understands and responds to ‘growth’ are explored as the basis for future provision. This dual focus is taken forward in four sections, excluding this introduction and some concluding remarks.•First, how the future ‘demand for housing’ is understood, and how this understanding is translated into action is explored in the opening section, which examines what I have called ‘established certainties’.•Second, a recent challenge to these certainties – and to planning based purely on long-term demographic trends – has precipitated a new approach to planning for housing. What this approach is, its treatment of ‘market signals’ as a trigger of land-use change and how it might influence future development patterns are explored.•Third, the drivers of change at the beginning of the 21st century are scrutinised and linked to a series of speculations on the future distribution of housing in England: an attempt is made to tie new drivers to new patterns and to consider the resource implications of these patterns.•The fourth section reflects on critical uncertainties, the big questions of our time – economic crisis, environmental risk, social-cultural shifts and the internationalisation of housing markets and population movement – that may drive change in unforeseen directions.