Market solutions for social problems: Working-class housing in nineteenth-century London

Abstract

This article shows how model dwellings companies were able to offer a solution to the 'housing problem' by profitably providing decent working-class accommodation in nineteenth-century London. Despite their success, a conjuncture of economic circumstances, ideological change, and public crowding-out led to the marginalization of model dwellings companies. This experiment to provide a market solution to a social problem represents a nineteenth-century form of ethical investment which has not been accomodated within the historiography of the development of the welfare state.