Publications
All Policy Exchange publications are free to download in .pdf format. You can also purchase hard copies of the majority of our reports – check each individual report page for details.

Housing & Planning Publications

Making Housing Affordable: A new vision for housing policy
Alex MortonMaking Housing Affordable calls for a radical overhaul of housing policy, saving taxpayers around £20 billion a year. It calls for a big increase in the number of new homes being built for sale or rent in areas of high demand, with social housing tenants given new ways to get onto the first rung of the housing ladder.

Building Blocks: An investigation into Building Schools for the Future
Anna Fazackerley and Katherine QuarmbyThe report recommends that Labour’s flagship Building Schools for the Future programme should be radically simplified and the quango who currently delivers this project – Partnerships for Schools – should have its remit curtailed.

The Right to Move
Policy ExchangeThe “Right to buy” was one of the Thatcher government’s defining policies, offering new opportunities to many social tenants. The “Right to move” offers opportunities for all social tenants. It can be a defining policy for this decade.

Cities Unlimited
Dr Oliver Marc HartwichIn their third report in the series on regeneration in the UK, Cities Unlimited, Tim Leunig and James Swaffield recommend a series of radical proposals that would reverse the trend of decline in the North and inject a much needed momentum back into regeneration policy.

Success and the City: Learning from International Urban Policies
Dr Oliver Marc HartwichThis report looks at and evaluates the different approaches to urban regeneration practised in the UK and abroad and proposes policy recommendations for the effective regeneration of deprived urban areas.

Cities Limited
Dr Oliver Marc HartwichCities Limited calls into question the value of the plethora of urban regeneration schemes delivered by a myriad of different agencies

The Best Laid Plans: How planning prevents economic growth
Dr Oliver Marc HartwichThe Best Laid Plans concludes that the main objective of planning has been to limit the spatial extent of cities and that this artificial reduction of land supply has severe consequences for society, the environment and the economy.

Living for the City: A New Agenda for Green Cities
Jesse Norman MPLiving for the City brings out crucial yet unexpected links between ‘direct democracy’ or greater citizen participation in community action and local decision-making; greener, healthier and safer city environments; and improved economic growth.

Better Homes, Greener Cities
Dr Oliver Marc HartwichBetter Homes, Greener Cities shows that too few houses are built in Britain because local communities have no incentives to support new development.

Bigger, Better, Faster, More: Why some countries plan better than others
Dr Oliver Marc HartwichBigger Fast Better More shows that in countries where local councils have to “compete for every inhabitant” they successfully plan for better and cheaper homes in sustainable, green communities.