Special Issue on Housing : Editor's Introduction

Although in most respects the amount and quality of Canadian research on the history of urban housing cannot compare with that on British and U.S. cities, in recent years its comparative disadvantage has been reduced. As much significant scholar ship has been published on the subject in the past ten years as in the previous fifty.1 The 1990s have seen the publication of the first history of housing in Canada;2 the first scholarly history of federal housing policy;3 and the first comprehensive, historical overview of housing since World War II.4 On a smaller scale, but with significant detail, it has seen the first history of housing in a Canadian province (Alberta);5 the first history of the politics of housing in an English-Canadian city (Vancouver);6 the first history of planning in a Canadian city;7 the first book-length history of an English-Canadian suburb;8 and the first systematic study of housing and suburban development in a Canadian city (Toronto).9 In a different, and more ambitious vein, it has also seen the publication of an attempt to write a history of North American housing through the lens of a Canadian city (Hamilton).10 In addition, it has seen the publication of substantial studies of apartment housing, préfabrication, boarding, and residential financing.11 Recent issues of Canadian Folklore Canadien and the Material History Review have also been devoted to the subject12. Altogether, the quantity of research on the history of housing in urban Canada has never been greater, or the quality higher.