Sarah Blandy's Publications
Books
(2010) Multi-owned Housing: Law, Power and Practice Ashgate
This international edited collection addresses the issues raised by multi-owned residential developments, now established as a major type of housing throughout the world in the form of apartment blocks, row housing, gated developments, and master planned communities. The chapters draw on the empirical research of leading academics in the fields of planning, sociology, law and urban, property, tourism and environmental studies, and consider the practical problems of owning and managing this type of housing. The roles and relationships of power between developers, managing agents and residents are examined, as well as challenges such as environmental sustainability and state regulation of multi-owned residential developments. The book provides the first comparative study of such issues, offering lessons from experiences in the UK, the US, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Hong Kong, Singapore and China.
(2006) Gated Communities Taylor and Francis/ Routledge
Chapters
(2011) Gating as governance: the boundaries spectrum in social and situational crime prevention In: Crawford A (eds.) International and Comparative Criminal Justice and Urban Governance: Convergence and Divergence in Global, National and Local Settings Cambridge University Press
This chapter considers crime prevention as part of a broader picture of urban governance in residential areas, primarily in the UK. Its starting point is gated communities, a relatively new form of housing development frequently cited as an exemplar of the current era’s ‘fortress mentality’. It is argued that boundaries of all kinds are a keynote of late modernity, and must be analysed in a way which takes account of the nuances of local cultural and geographical differences. This chapter draws the law and geography literature and focuses on an interlinked set of specific spatial techniques used to address crime and disorder by demarcating and differentiating residential areas through boundaries of different kinds: physical, legal and symbolic.
(2010) Conclusions In: Blandy S; Dupuis A; Dixon J (eds.) Multi-owned Housing: Law, Power and Practice pp. 225 - 234 Ashgate
Draws together the main themes of the book, and discusses the particular issues concerning multi-owned housing which emerge from the different chapters; suggests a future research agenda for this field.
(2010) Introduction In: Blandy S; Dupuis A; Dixon J (eds.) Multi-owned Housing: Law, Power and Practice pp. 1 - 12 Ashgate
Overview of power relations in multi-owned housing internationally; introduction to the international importance and theorisation of this form of residential development; introduction to the various chapters.
(2010) Legal Frameworks for Multi-owned Housing in England and Wales: Owners’ Experiences In: Blandy S; Dupuis A; Dixon J (eds.) Multi-owned Housing: Law, Power and Practice pp. 13 - 34 Ashgate
Sets out the range of legal frameworks available for multi-owned housing, and the different relationships between developer, managing agent and residents. Uses empirical data to explain and illustrate the lack of power experienced by owners.
(2008) Secession or cohesion? Exploring the impact of gated communities In: Flint J; Robinson D (eds.) Community cohesion in crisis? New dimensions of diversity and difference pp. 239 - 257 Policy Press
(2006) Gated communities: a response to, or remedy for, anti-social behaviour? In: Flint J (eds.) Housing, Urban Governance and Anti-social behaviour: Persepctives, Policies and Practice pp. 239 - 255 Policy Press
(2006) Judicial Directions in Landlord and Tenant Law: Different Policies for Different Sectors In: Bright S (eds.) Landlord and Tenant Law: Past, Present and Future pp. 41 - 63 Hart
During the twentieth century the law of landlord and tenant has moved from one of general common law principles applicable to all types of land, to a growing diversification based on the nature of the user of the land through the development of different statutory regimes. The chapter takes a critical doctrinal analysis approach to examining how the senior judiciary have responded to this diversification, in particular by examining their attitudes to two different sectors: the social rented and the business sectors of landlord and tenant relations, arguing that legal doctrine is less important than policy context.
(2005) The rise of private residential neighbourhoods in Britain and New Zealand In: Glasze; G; Webster; C; Frantz; K (eds.) Private neighbourhoods: Global and local perspectives Routledge
An international comparison of the governance of private residential neighbourhoods. Three levels of governance are examined: national planning policies, operational planning process at local level, and internal governance of private neighbourhoods. The similarities and differences between governance arrangements in England and New Zealand serve to focus on key features of such neighbourhoods and their legal frameworks
(2001) Standards in the private rented sector and the three Rs: Regulation, Responsibilities and Rights In: Cowan D; Marsh A (eds.) Two Steps Forward: Housing Policy into the New Millennium pp. 73 - 92 The Policy Press
Alternative approaches to ensuring standards in the private rented sector are discussed. Discourse analysis highlights how policy approaches adopted by successive governments have varied over time. The chapter examines the use of law in regulating private landlords, encouraging responsibilisation of the sector, and in establishing rights for private tenants.
Conferences
Governance Issues in Enclave Urbanism: Why Law Matters Enclave Urbanism as Problem or Solution - European and Asian Perspectives
Journal Articles
(2010) Law, boundaries and the production of space: guest editorial, Introduction to special issue In: Social and Legal Studies 19 (3) pp. 275 - 284
This special issue addresses the problematic nature of space, whether psychic, symbolic or material, from an inter-disciplinary standpoint. The diverse articles are concerned with legal, psychical, cultural, social and political boundaries. Spaces with legal meanings are the product of such boundaries, and the relation of law and space as explored by the legal geography literature underpins this collection, which investigates these issues at a range of spatial scales, from the scale of the self to the global. In considering the continuum of tension between fear and desire manifest in individuals’ internalised boundaries, we need also to make use of theories developed in psychoanalysis and social psychology. Kleinian ‘splitting’, for example, offers an explanation of law’s role in the creation and maintenance of strong boundaries which exclude ‘othered’ groups. Law’s power as a discourse is challenged by internal contradictions at the international scale, when human rights arguments confront state territorial jurisdiction; while at the other end of the scalar spectrum, regulation of conduct depends both on accepted legal notions of the self-governing individual and on assumptions of shared moral values. Other articles in this issue emphasise the nature of boundaries as liminal spaces full of attendant ambiguity, which although legally established and enforced prove in fact to be remarkably permeable. The interdisciplinary perspectives developed in this issue demonstrate the need to further problematise boundaries and to acknowledge the complexity of material, social and mental spaces.
(2009) La Peur de la Délinquance et du Désordre et l’Extension des Quartiers Residentiels Sécurisés en Angleterre [Fear of crime and disorder, and the spread of gated communities in England]. In: Déviance et Société 33 (4) pp. 557 - 572
This article considers the global spread of gated communities and, in relation to issues of anti-social behaviour and disorder, particularly focuses on particular enclosed neighbourhoods in England. Drawing on empirical research, the article questions whether fortification is effective against these problems, and discusses the long-term impact of the development of gating.
(2009) A picture of the floating World: grounding the secessionary affluence of the residential cruise liner In: Antipode 41 (1) pp. 92 - 110
A quarter century of financial deregulation, robber-baron corporatism and growing income polarisation has enabled the spatial partitioning of urban space into new and complex arrangements ofmicro-neighbourhood governance and privatism. These archipelagos of fortress homes and neighbourhoods increasingly lie outside the spaces of conventional state and city government. Yet while residential spaces of urban affluence have been unable to fully remove contact with the social diversity of the public realm, nomadic forms of super-affluence, flowing around a global–national urban system, have generated a form of networked extra-territoriality— a social space decoupled from the perceived risks and general dowdiness of the social world beneath it. This paper examines this space via the curious case of The World, a large residential cruise ship which, as its name suggests, roams the oceans and ports of the globe. Our title is taken from the name given to Japanese paintings of the new affluence and fantasy of life lived by the affluent and artists in late nineteenth century Japanese cities (O Ukiyo E, or pictures of the floating world). We suggest that The World forms a similarly disconnected realm, not only literally afloat, also detached from the reality of a world that has been strategically left behind.
(2008) Researching the Judiciary: Exploring the Invisible in Judicial Decision Making In: Journal of Law and Society 35 (Special Research Issue) pp. 76 - 90
Considers the processes involved in developing methodology and methods appropriate to exploring the way in which judicial discretion is exercised in the County Court, in relation to possession cases brought against the tenants of social landlords on the grounds of rent arrears. The article is based on an empirical project commissioned by the Department of Constitutional Affairs (DCA) in 2004.
(2007) Panic Rooms: The Rise of Defensive Homeownership In: Housing Studies 22 (4) pp. 443 - 458 Carfax Publishing Limited
This paper documents and attempts to explain why homeowners have adopted an increasingly strategic approach to the defence of the home and the progressively vengeful pursuit of those who invade the home. This approach has been articulated via the political process as well as through a media 'conversation' that form a milieu within which defensive homeownership has emerged. It is suggested that a threshold has been crossed marking a transformative moment in which left-leaning calls for understanding have been supplanted by a call for the increasingly vicious defence of home territories. In a broader context of neo-liberalism the transition toward increased privatism, freedom of choice and unfettered agency now closely correspond to the position of homeowners as 'consumer sovereigns'. Defensive homeowneship therefore appears not only as the aspirations of homeowners for safety but also as a result of a complex interrelationship between political, media and ideological systems that have generated strong impressions of risk and victimisation. The paper documents the powerful socio-legal and political discourses which have reinforced territorial instincts while generating a broader culture of fear played out through celebrated cases in the public domain. In conclusion, it is argued that defensive homeownership expresses an aggressive aspect of the socio-political constitution of that tenure and a broader need for the deployment of cathartic public policies in defence of embattled home territories.
(2006) Theorising Power Relationships in Multi-owned Residential Developments: Unpacking the Bundle of Rights In: Urban Studies 43 (13) pp. 2365 - 2383 Carfax Publishing Limited
This article foregrounds the complex connections between property and law in the multi-owned residential sites which are becoming increasingly common in many countries. Empirical research into intensive housing developments in New Zealand and gated communities in England found that, despite differences in legal structures, individual owners often expressed frustration at their lack of control over the on-going management of such developments. This article suggests an analytical framework for considering and explaining issues of power and control amongst developers, residents and managing agents of these sites. We use the concept of the 'bundle of rights' approach to property interests and ownership to explore the importance of the right to manage. Drawing on the work of Foucault, Bourdieu, Clegg and Callon, the article tracks the transfer of power and legal rights through the critical legal events identified as taking place in the process of development and sale of multi-owned residential sites. It is suggested that these analytical tools might be useful in illuminating power relationships and legal arrangements in other urban property configurations.
(2006) District judges and possession proceedings In: Journal of Law and Society 33 (4) pp. 547 - 571
(2006) Gated communities in England: historical perspectives and current developments In: GeoJournal 66 (1) pp. 15 - 26 Kluwer Academic Publishers
This article uses findings from recent studies of gated communities in England, together with historical material, to explore their typology. It considers the changing socio-legal, economic and political conditions which may lead to the emergence of defended collective housing, in the context of the history of property relations and the concept of public/private land in England.
(2005) Gated communities: (Ne)gating community development? In: Housing Studies 20 (2) pp. 287 - 302 Carfax Publishing Limited
Gated Communities are becoming increasingly common across England, yet very little is known about the impact these developments have upon the residents of the wider community or those within the confines of the gates. This article draws on empirical research carried out in a gated community in the north of England to explore social ties amongst the residents, in the presence of a legal framework (lease and residents’ management company) which provides behavioural rules, sanctions, and a structure for resident management of the development. The data suggests that gated residents’ rights and responsibilities are, by and large, confined to legalities, rather than extending to a commitment to enhance social networks either within the development or in the adjacent wider community. The article concludes that gated communities of the type discussed here, ready-made new developments introduced into established neighbourhoods, may also exacerbate the effect of physical and social barriers between residents within and outside the gated community.
(2005) Introduction: International Perspectives on the New Enclavism and the Rise of Gated Communities In: Housing Studies 20 (2) pp. 177 - 186 Carfax Publishing Limited
The introduction to this special issue suggests that gated communities form a kind of contractual neighbourhood in which residence is governed by explicit socio-legal codes of conduct and conditions as a pre-requisite to entry. Such arrangements also undermine a notion of territorial justice in which neighbourhoods should be seen as socially connected entities rather than more or less privatised and autonomous locales. This review of the papers in this volume reflects on these and other issues; the papers provide a range of frameworks for analysing why gated communities have arisen, why they persist and whether or not normative theories of the good city should challenge gated neighbourhoods as desirable in a context of social justice in the city. No doubt this volume will not be the last word on this controversial topic for socio-legal, urban and housing researchers in the future.
(2004) Relationship breakdown, women and tenants' rights - choice or paternalism? In: Child and Family Law Quarterly 16 (2) pp. 165 - 174 Jordan Publishing Ltd.
This article provides an analysis of how social landlords deal with the reconstituted families of women tenants following relationship breakdown, examining the choices of both landlords and tenants in the allocation and termination of single and joint tenancies. Relevant legislation, case-law and policy guidance are discussed, and the implications of current practice are explored.
(2003) Gated communities in England: rules and rhetoric of urban planning In: Geographica Helvetica 58 (4) pp. 314 - 324 Bern : Kümmerly & Frey
The number of private gated developments continues to grow in Britain, in apparent contradiction to the government’s urban policy aims of developing balanced, sustainable, mixed communities. There has been no official recognition of the trend towards gated communities, nor any national debate about their desirability as a built or social form. Contradictory guidance is given to local authorities about the design priorities for new housing developments. A case study tracks tracking the progress of a gated community through the planning process in Sheffield to illustrate the problems of regulating this new form of housing. Interviews with key players in this development inform discussion about the supply and demand for gated communities, which are found to be influenced by globalised marketing trends for ideal housing types, and a pervasive fear of crime. The issues which are highlighted by the growth of gated communities in Britain demand more attention than can be provided by the current policy vacuum.
(2001) Reforming Leasehold: Discursive Events and Outcomes, 1984–2000 In: Journal of Law and Society 28 (3) pp. 384 - 408 Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
This article uses discourse analysis to explore and explain the limits of ongoing efforts to resolve the problems experienced by long leaseholders living in private flats in England and Wales. Attention is focused on the position of leasehold within the three discourses of property law, housing and housing law, as revealed through the language used in legislation, Consultation Papers, Law Commission reports, political statements, media representations and the accounts of leaseholders themselves. The implementation gap between legislative intentions and effects, so often neglected in discussion of housing policy, is explored. The article considers policy and legislation in the light of a metanarrative encompassing all aspects of the multi-occupancy of blocks of flats.
(1999) From Tenure to Rights: Conceptualising the Changing Focus of Housing Law in England In: Housing, Theory and Society 16 pp. 31 - 42
Contact Details
- Tel: 0113 343 5050
- Email: s.blandy@leeds.ac.uk