The social use of market processes in British and Hungarian housing policies

The switch of state subsidies away from support for public housing investment and towards an intensification of market processes is no longer the prerogative of Western countries, but, in the 1980s, has also become a feature of some state socialist societies. However, given the contrasting social, political and economic character of these societies, does the apparently similar process of privatisation in fact have the same characteristics, meaning and social consequences?

In this paper Britain and Hungary have been chosen as countries representative of the two social systems and in which market processes have intensified. The comparison begins by examining the social meaning of'owning’ and ‘renting’, the historical context of the development of housing policy, the allocation systems, rents, and subsidies. Focusing on the social housing sector the paper contrasts current housing issues. Particular attention is given to the “Right to Buy” policy which is a common feature in the 1980s of housing policy in both countries.

As a result of their mainly empirical comparison the authors conclude that privatisation in Britain and Hungary occurred in housing systems which have been similar in their tenure structure but very different in historical context. Because the broad social‐political context of privatisation is different, particularly the economic and institutional interests rooted within this issue, it is not inevitable that the regressive social consequences of measures which promote the privatisation process (which are common to both countries) are automatically negative in terms of the general sociological assessment.Thus comparison can help in the preparation of policy options and the assessment of new possibilities, but only as background. Strategies should be evaluated primarily against the social‐political context of each country and against the current policy objectives.     

The housing careers of black middle-class residents in a South African metropolitan area

Under apartheid, black African households could not own land or homes in most major urban centres in South Africa. This limited residential mobility and locked many households into state rental accommodation in townships. Homeownership for all South Africans was restored in the mid-1980 s and the Group Areas Act was repealed in 1991. Democracy opened up economic opportunities previously unavailable to black people. This paper investigates the effect on black middle-class South African households’ residential mobility and housing careers. A retrospective cross-sectional survey of 244 such homeowners in the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality determined their last five housing states. Changes in housing state indicated a steady improvement in housing quality, but tenure changes were not necessarily unidirectional—some had reverted to rental. More than 85% of the study participants had used mortgages to finance their housing career. Very few had financed their housing using own savings, an inheritance, or sale of a previous house, and not many had used the government subsidy. We found that housing careers are bridging the historical spatial racial divide in this municipality.     

Housing Tenure Preferences in the Post-privatisation Period: The Case of Slovenia

The privatisation of social housing transformed many transitional countries in Central and Eastern Europe into societies with predominant homeownership and a marginalised rental sector. The case of Slovenia shows that, despite a low level of government support of homeowners, the homeownership rate has remained at its unsustainably high level and households continue to express strong preferences for homeownership. The paper explores factors explaining current homeownership preferences in Slovenia. A comprehensive model of housing preferences is built. The model follows the proposition that tenure preferences are strongly influenced by general cultural norms and factors characterising the social, economic and political environments. The model is tested using structural equation modelling based on a survey of Slovenian households. The results reveal that the strong preferences for homeownership in Slovenia can be explained by the firm perceptions of the financial advantages of homeownership and by the lack of available rental alternatives.     

Privatising Public Housing in Hong Kong: Its Impact on Equity

Three processes are examined to assess the impact on equity of policies to privatise public housing in Hong Kong. These are changes in the inter-sectoral distribution of subsidies, changes in the quality and quantity of public rental housing, and changes in access to public housing. It is found that housing subsidies have remained concentrated in the public rental sector, and the quantity, quality and amenity of housing in this sector has actually increased. The Hong Kong Government has not sought to reduce eligibility for and access to public housing; the lengthy waiting list to join this tenure reflects increases in demand since the privatisation policy was introduced. Thus, unlike the experiences of many other countries, the Hong Kong Government's policy to privatise public housing has not had a notably adverse impact on housing equity to date.     

Good dwellings for all: The case of social rented housing in Sweden

During the last decade many European countries have experienced a decline in the production of social rented housing, and there has also been an increase in sales of such dwellings. However, in Sweden social rented housing is still treated as an integral part of Social Democratic housing policy. According to this policy it should not be regarded as a residual tenure only to people in special need of housing. On the contrary, the official goal is to make it as efficient as other tenures in providing good dwellings for all. In order to popularise this tenure a number of measures have been introduced during the 1980s, such as diversification of the stock, decentralisation of management, increasing tenants’ influence and ambitious renewal programmes. Sales of municipal housing have been kept at a low level, although more sophisticated forms of privatisation have been observable. This paper reviews recent tendencies in social rented housing in Sweden, ending up with a discussion of its political basis and prospects.     

Explanations of Social Exclusion: Where Does Housing Fit in?

This paper takes the view that concepts of social exclusion are socially constructed by different combinations of economic, social and political processes. It is suggested that the core meaning of social exclusion is bound up with social isolation and social segregation, and it is therefore argued that an analysis of social mobility (or the lack of it) is crucial to understanding the content and extent of social exclusion. Three approaches to the analysis of social mobility are briefly considered, and it is concluded that the causation of social exclusion appears to have three interrelated dimensions: economic, legal/political, and moral/ideological. The main theoretical approaches to social exclusion, encompassing 'structural' and 'cultural' perspectives, are then examined, and a new, more holistic theory is proposed, using the concept of a duality of interrelated labour processes. This theory is developed on three different levels, corresponding to the three dimensions of social exclusion. The final part of the paper is concerned with the application of the theory of social exclusion to housing processes. The latter are discussed under the headings of housing production, housing tenure, residential segregation, housing mobility, and processes associated with homelessness and leaving home. It is shown how housing processes cut across the different social levels (labour process, social reproduction and ideology), how they reflect prevailing patterns of social exclusion, and how they can either mitigate or reinforce those patterns. Social exclusion is distinguished from forms of housing exclusion (for example, relating to tenure), with which it is sometimes confused. It is noted that the groups which are commonly socially excluded through housing processes are those which are to be expected on the basis of the theory, namely unwaged, unskilled, not within a 'traditional' family household, and seen as 'undeserving'.     

Exploring Dual Housing Tenure Status as a Household Response to Demographic,Social and Economic Change

This article proposes that single housing tenure categories do not enable an understanding of the ways in which households use, occupy and own residential properties in the context of broad demographic, economic and social changes. Adapting work on sub-tenure housing choice, housing tenure is overlaid with ownership of residential property to develop four tenure types: Owner, Owner-Owner, Renter and Renter-Owner. Applying this typology in the Australian case provides valuable new insights, with 1.5 million households having dual housing tenure status, including almost one in eight private renters. More broadly, reconceptualising housing tenure to include ownership of other residential property can contribute to theoretical debates about household income and wealth; social status and identity; and social practices and life planning, potentially generating new research questions such as the extent to which Renter-Owners reflect new patterns of living or a response to affordability constraints, and the social identity and political affiliations of those with a dual tenure status.     

Embedded Tenures: Private Renting and Housing Policy in Surat,India

Over the past two decades, urban housing research in poorer countries has drawn attention to the importance and significance of rental housing. Increasingly, this is also being recognised by international development agencies such as the World Bank and the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat). However, the housing policies of national governments have been resilient to change–the conferring of ownership rights is preferred to attempts at fostering a range of tenure options. Drawing upon primary research in Surat, the second largest city in the western Indian state of Gujarat, this paper argues that this is in part the result of complex economic, social and political processes embedded in the relations of production, exchange and consumption of rental housing, which in turn raises questions as to how best poorer landlords are to be supported.     

Empty dwellings and tenure switching: A British case study

It has been long recognised that vacant dwellings represent a serious waste of at least a part of the housing stock. Yet our knowledge of this issue, and the nature of the economic, social, political and legal processes which both explain and determine the level of vacancy, remains limited. In this paper an explanatory framework for the analysis of vacancies is presented, together with the empirical results from research in one inner London borough. The findings show that in addition to facilitating household mobility and stock rehabilitation, the processes which create vacancies determine their duration, and govern eventual access to them, are, in the private sector, closely allied with tenure change.     

Housing in game‐theoretical perspective

This article presents a game‐theoretical framework for the study of housing provision, with particular reference to housing organisations. These organisations and their leaders are seen as acting in three arenas: internal, market and political. The interplay between organisations and other actors within the three arenas can be analysed as nested games, where pay‐offs in one arena are influenced by conditions in the others. In some cases the result of one game determines the rules of later games. Games over tenure legislation are probably the most important cases of institutional design in housing. The outcomes of ‘tenure games’ in the policy arena lay down the rules of future games in the market and organisational arenas and, indirectly, in the political arena as well. Over time a historical chain of games and institutions is developed. This evolutionary process can be investigated through detailed ‘process tracing’, combined with comparative studies.     

Public sector housing in Urban China 1949–1988: The case of Xian

The literature on housing systems and housing policy in different countries has made an important contribution to the analysis and understanding of key issues relating to the origins and nature of state intervention in housing, and to the interaction of specific social, political and economic forces. The most important initial contributions to this literature referred principally to the advanced industrial economies of Western Europe and North America. This paper aims to broaden the base of comparative research in housing and add to the understanding of public sector housing provision and policy in China. It examines the development of public sector housing in urban areas between 1949 and 1988 through a study of Xian City, and provides detailed analyses of distinctive features of the Chinese urban housing system. The objectives are to fill the gap in the existing literature on housing provision in China through reference to the inland area of the country. This paper concludes that the current urban housing system reflects the particular social, political and economic relationships between the people, the employers and the government. Housing reform in China will not only bring about a major privatisation process, but it will involve a fundamental re‐organisation of the urban society.     

Home ownership policy in Singapore: An assessment

Since independence in 1965, housing conditions in the city‐state of Singapore, with a population of 2.6 million in 1988, have improved considerably. Much of the credit for this must be attributed to the government's policy of building homes for the lower income groups. One objective of the housing policy is 100 per cent home ownership for public housing. In pursuing this policy the political and social aspects are often emphasised. This paper attempts an economic evaluation of the 100 per cent home ownership target. It examines the demand and supply side policies that are employed to achieve the target. In analysing the economic implications of the policy, it is observed that such a policy distorts household expenditure, leads to overconsumption of housing and results in a thinner rental market and constrains tenure choice. These economic losses need to be recognised even while accepting the political and social importance of the policy.     

Social housing—past,present and future

Over the past decade in Western Europe there has been a growth of unmet low‐income housing needs. There are now as many as 3–5 million homeless people in the EC countries and many more who are paying more than they can afford for poor quality accommodation (Quilliot, 1992, p. 12). In the 1970s it seemed as if the acute post‐war shortages of low‐income housing had finally been overcome and mass programmes of social rented housing had played a key role in bringing this about. In addition, rising prosperity had opened up private market housing opportunities for broad sections of the population. However, the profound economic, social and political changes since the mid‐1970s have destroyed this optimistic scenario. Now we face, on the one hand, the re‐emergence of a large scale problem of housing availability and affordability and, on the other hand, the reluctance or inability of most governments and societies to respond to this problem. In particular, no government now seems likely to support large scale programmes of social rented housing construction to help meet the rising tide of low‐income housing needs. Indeed, large parts of the existing stock of social rented housing are beset with social, economic and physical problems. Also, in some countries, Great Britain and Germany for example, the size of this sector is rapidly diminishing as privatisation takes place. The purpose of this policy review is first to place the current circumstances of social rented housing in a longer‐term historical perspective, and second to compare the current situation of social rented housing in several Western European countries. Finally, the review will reflect on the prospects for social rented housing.     

Privatisation Reversals of Bus Transport Service: A Case of Shanghai in China

Public services have experienced a wave of privatisation reversal worldwide since 1990s. The debate about privatisation reversal has thus increased growing scholarly attention. To fully understand the reversal, this paper attempts to identify the reasons for reversal (why do actors engage in them), reveal the characteristics of reversal process (how does it happen), and evaluate the performance after reversal in urban bus transport field. The reversal of the privatised Shanghai public bus service was selected for illustration. The findings suggest that: (1) there exist various reversal reasons in different institutional environments, involving economic, political, and societal factors; (2) The reversal process is characterised by multi-actor interactions embedded in institutional environments; (3) The performance is improved after reversal.     

Strategies for In Situ Home Improvement in Romanian Large Housing Estates

Socio-economic and physical change have visibly affected post-socialist cities, yet the state of decay of their inherited large housing estates has only deepened throughout the 1990s, despite the change in tenure through policies of large-scale privatisation. Housing disrepair has now reached a critical stage that requires rapid private and public intervention. This paper examines the extent to which Romanian block residents have been able to improve in situ their housing conditions since 2000, the strategies they employed and the challenges they faced. It focuses on the often ignored private domain of housing, flats and blocks, where changes are also likely to be less visible. By analysing the process of individual utility metering and the practice of collective block management, I argue that besides economics, the unregulated housing context and a relaxed legal culture have challenged individual and collective action and have generated a framework of housing privatism.     

Socialist architecture in Mao's model village: a case study of Qinyong Village in Ningbo

In the context of current drives for the renewal and conservation of rural Chinese villages, socialist villages developed under Mao Zedong's tenure as Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (1949–1976) seem have been marginalised. This research selects one of Mao's model villages, Qinyong in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, as a case study. Through historical and on-site research, this article articulates and analyses the transformation of the village landscape from the early socialist period to the latest renovation in 2014. Focussing in particular on the transformation of the village's housing from the 1970s to the 1990s, the article tries to identify historical conditions of social, political and economic organisation embedded in the physical forms. By juxtaposing the recent planning and renovation of the village with its past, the discussion of the village's architectural heritage is intended to cast some light on key aspects of village preservation and revitalisation in rural China.     

Views of a Developing Region

The objective pf Santa Monica's rent control law, in effect since 1979, is to protect renters —particularly “the poor, minorities, students, young families and senior citizens” — from rapidly rising rents. Comparing 1987 and 1979 tenant surveys indicates that the rent control ordinance has fulfilled some of its goals. Length of tenure has increased, while lower-income tenants and the elderly have benefited most. In addition, the law may have contributed to stopping the decline in households with children. However, it has not stopped a decline in the proportion of black and Latino households. The results suggest that the vacancy control provision of the ordinance is the major factor offering protection to tenants. Since rent control does not increase the supply of affordable rental units nor prevent housing discrimination, it should be viewed as one of a number of housing policy strategies for maintaining affordable housing for specific target populations.     

Migration and housing tenure in South East England

"A substantial literature has developed regarding the relationship between migration and housing tenure in Britain.... It is important to control for individual characteristics before the independent effect of tenure on mobility can be determined. This paper is a report of an investigation of this relationship in the South East of England, in which the Sample of Anonymised Records, a unique individual-level British data source for this type of study, were used. The study continues with a consideration of the influence of housing on migration into the South East from the North of Britain for those in manual and nonmanual occupations."     

Evaluating Tenure Mix Interventions: A Case Study from Sydney,Australia

Policies of tenure mix, by removing concentrations of social housing or through the application of inclusionary zoning-type powers to new developments, are being pursued throughout Australia and in the USA, the UK and New Zealand. Implementing this tenure mix policy agenda requires significant intervention into urban areas that currently have concentrations of social housing, through programmes of regeneration or renewal. Despite this policy agenda, research on the benefits of tenure mix has produced inconclusive evidence, both in Australia and internationally. The paper reports on research undertaken in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, which tests a method of evaluating tenure mix policy. The exploratory method uses dwelling price data as a proxy for measuring amenity or ‘neighbourhood quality’ changes from tenure mix interventions.     

河内的住宅演变及与北京之比较

中越两国的经济文化交流源远流长。近现代以来,由于经济、政治体制相同,使得城市住宅有许多相近之处。但是,经济、社会发展本身,以及不同地域文化,使得两国建筑还是存在一定的差异。本文通过河内与北京城市住宅的比较,反映出政治、经济、历史、文化和自然条件,对两国城市住宅建筑不同的影响。