Scottish urban housebuilding, 1870-1914

The initial stages of this study are confined to establishing a sound documentary, methodological and statistical basis for subsequent analysis of the forces determining housebuilding fluctuations in numerous Scottish burghs. Thus, at the outset attention is concentrated on the strengths and weaknesses of the major data source, the Dean of Guild Court building permits. The strengths of this source prevailing, the various indices are constructed on a comparable basis both in terms of technique and base years to studies of English housebuilding fluctuations. The duration and severity of Scottish urban housebuilding fluctuations are investigated at a national, regional and individual burgh level and are related both to the entire period of 1870-1914 and its sub-periods. The amplitude and periodicity of Scottish housebuilding cycles are also considered in relation to those in England and Wales. One of the important themes is the inter-relationship of housebuilding with other types of building work. Thus, some attention is devoted to the trends of industrial and commercial construction, public building and jobbing work such as small alterations and additions. The patterns of fluctuations in these branches of building and their relative magnitude compared to housebuilding work is another topic of interest. The relationship of Scottish housebuilding fluctuations to those in other areas of Scottish, British and American investment is investigated in chapter four in an effort to place the Scottish study within the context of the debate conducted on the theme of alternating flows of home and foreign investment in the period 1870 to 1914. The hypo thesis of a systematic relationship in the ebb and flow of domestic and overseas investment with an important role ascribed to migration patterns is demonstrably questionable, both upon criteria developed in earlier critiques and also, in a Scottish dimension, upon statistical series at a national and local level. Emphasis is in fact at various stages placed upon the avoidance of mechanistic and monocausal explanations of house¬ building fluctuations at the cyclically variable intensity of individual and composite factors is stressed. This theme is often apparent but is exemplified in the discussion of specifically Scottish legal and institutional arrangements which induced a time path different to that of England, and contributed not only a formative influence on housebuilding fluctuations previously overlooked by other researchers in this field but also, as a by-product, provided some information relating to rural housebuilding and demolition in the section dealing with the implications of the Inhabited House Duty in Scotland. Two chapters, one concentrating on demand factors and the other on supply influences, form the explanatory basis of housebuilding fluctuations in the various burghs. Disaggregated into several population influences and in conjunction with the local employment situation the demand explanations in most Scottish burghs occupy a position of lesser importance when the variety of supply factors are related to housebuilding fluctuations. In terms of timing and magnitude the amalgam of building costs, uncertainty and expectations, the size of firms and the structure of the building industry, existing stocks and the availability of finance exert greater influence on the course of local housebuilding in at least two-thirds of the burgh. It is in the light of such findings that the concluding chapter attempts to relate the mechanics of housebuilding fluctuations to the wider forum of alternating factor flows, both human and capital, as represented in the idea of an 'Atlantic Economy'. Furthermore, the contribution of Scottish housebuilding to income, employment and investment in the Scottish economy during the period 1870 to 1914 is also demonstrated to be a considerable one, amplified by related forms of building work.