In the past, accounts of housing were dominated by the analysis of the problems of slum property at the bottom of the market, and the way in which public housing emerged from attempts to ameliorate the worst conditions, in an apparently inevitable process. This title questions this perception by focussing on the process of development, architectural forms, the pattern of ownership, property management and control, and public policy.

The history of the post office involves many of the most significant themes in the social, economic and political history of Britain. Daunton traces the development of the post office as an institution and as a business in the 19th and 20th centuries and places the debates surrounding its history, performances and failings in a longer historical perspective and in the broader context of British national history.