Critical Appraisal of Contemporary Urban Housing Problems Essay

Critical Appraisal of Contemporary Urban Housing Problems - Essay Example This trend has been exhibited through a data of 464 tenants of the market for council housing (Nevin et al. 2001: p. 59). As per the social and economic features of tenants for the council housing, it seems that the customer-base is getting economically weaker as only 16% tenants are working full time, 37.4% are in search of employment and 86.4% are getting help from the state. In comparison to private rented sector where 64% tenants are working, only 31% of council’s ates the weaker economic graph of the tenants of city council houses. Tenants give top priority to such tenancies which are of their preferred size, are situated in the right localities, family and friends are easily reachable and environment is healthy (ibid: p. 60). Trends are similar in geographical diverse areas such as Knowsley, Wigan and Stockport. As per the 1999 housing investment data, the social rented housing in Knowlsey was high with a population of 154,562 (38%), out of which local authority possessed 19,187 units (31%) and housing association owned 4,344 (7.1%). In Wigan the difference between the local authority and the housing association in the social housing segment was 24%. It was quite vast with local authority houses 21% and housing association houses just 2%. In Stockport the percentage of social housing was 16 while council share was 11% (ibid: p. 63). Comparatively, council housing is easily available than housing association. In Knowsley, most of the housing stock of housing association is outside the borough, in Liverpool. In Stockport and Wigan, housing association accommodations are found to be in good numbers but even then insufficient (ibid: p. 73). In comparison to council houses, private rented houses are in good numbers, are easily traceable and offer better locality alternatives than council houses. Private properties are widely advertised through the local print media. The only hindrance in renting of private property