Wars, Epidemics and Early Housing Policy: The Long-Run Effects of Temporary Disturbances

Abstract

This chapter considers urban dynamics in response to external disturbances (notably wars and epidemics) and the contribution of early policy development, related to sanitation and slum clearance. Wars, although temporary, are found to have permanent effects on local population distributions, although the nineteenth century cholera and 1918 influenza outbreaks did not. The Second World War had particularly large effects. However, adjusting for age, the relative spatial distribution of health outcomes across London has changed little since the mid-nineteenth century, despite the large London-wide fall in death rates over this period. The most likely cause is residential sorting of the population, rather than intrinsic features of the areas.