Housing Policy Changes in Ghana in the 1990s

The housing sector in Ghana has undergone fundamental changes since the 1990s. Policy focus has shifted away from direct state provision and has moved strongly towards active private sector participation in housing production, financing and production of building materials. In part, this is due to the failure of public housing programmes, dwindling state resources, unimpressive performance of state-owned enterprises, and recognition that the government alone is unable to solve the housing problem. On a broader scale, the changes are rooted in liberalization ideologies that have swept through most economies in the 1980s and 1990s, which have had varying effects on people's housing need and on the national economy. The purpose of this paper is to examine these effects, to offer some interpretations, and to outline some of the lingering challenges facing the country's housing sector.     

The Limits and Potentials of the Housing Market Enabling Paradigm: An Evaluation of China's Housing Policies from 1998 to 2011

This paper examines the housing policies in China in the last 14 years in the context of the international debate on the World Bank's housing market enabling strategy to improve low-income housing provision in developing countries. A review of China's urban housing outcomes reveals housing price inflation and shortage of affordable housing in the fast expanding housing market. The paper analyzes policies to increase both demand for and supply of housing and argues that these policies have contributed to worsening affordability. This situation has been exacerbated by problems in the institutional framework managing the housing sector. The paper concludes that market enabling alone is not sufficient to achieve a satisfactory housing outcome for low- and middle-income groups in Chinese cities. It advocates more effective and direct public intervention for enhancing social housing provision and tightening market regulation to address both market and government failures to improve housing conditions for lower income groups.     

The Danish housing market: Housing policies for different housing tenure

Since 1987 interest and publication in Norwegian housing policies have increased significantly. This article deepens and widens my earlier published work on Norwegian housing policy, and it responds to some earlier reviews of my work. The central themes of the article are that Norway has used state policy to develop its housing sector over many decades; that since the mid‐1970s policy makers have had to adjust their housing system to national and international macro‐economic change; and that in a comparative perspective, Norway has pursued housing policies which have important anti‐poverty elements, some egalitarianism, and some useful choice and efficiencies. Norway has used balanced state, market, and self‐help roles to develop its housing sector, and the institutional framework in which these roles operate has been reformed since the late‐1970s in the light of changing economic, social, and political conditions. Changes in the international economy have been particularly significant as Norway depends upon the international economy to sustain its living standards, including its housing standards.     

From deficient planning to “incapable tenants”. Changing discourses on housing problems in Sweden

Since the mid 1970s, discourses on housing problems and problem tenants in Sweden have changed significantly. This article, which is based on official reports and an urban case study, accounts for this transformation at the national, the urban, as well as the work‐practice level of discourse from a constructivist perspective.

The government's understanding of high vacancy rates were, in the 1970s, associated with deficient planning and building. However, in the 1980s, focus was diverted to a crisis in the public housing sector, which in turn highlighted the “noisy neighbour” as the source of their negative image. At the urban level the shifting discourse is signified by the municipal housing companies’ more selective policy in the 1980s, and the local social authorities’ growing role in housing for homeless clients. Contradictory demands from the role as landlords and as social workers, at the level of work‐practice, resulted in a redefinition and revaluation of homeless clients. In the beginning of the 1990s, these new practices at urban and street‐levels were sanctioned at the national level, thereby completing the shift from structural to individual accounts for housing problems.     

New Zealand housing policy: Continuities and changes

The article reviews the development of New Zealand's housing policy from the early years of the present century when the foundations were laid for an interventionist social democratic‐style housing policy. This policy has increasingly come under pressure through changes within New Zealand's internal and external economy particularly during the 70s. In this decade and in the early 80s changes took place in the pattern of house building, the costs of construction, land and finance; leading to rapid escalations in prices and a growing problem of affordability. The change of Government in 1984 and the initiation of new policies by the Labour administration have produced a radical restructuring of the housing sector removing many of its protections through the de‐regulation of the financial market. The initial results have been rapidly rising interest rates together with shifts in patterns of building and in investments within financial institutions. These changes have led to a sharpening of divisions between those who are already owner occupiers and other householders and have exacerbated further the problem of housing affordability. The article concludes with some speculation as to the likely social and political consequences of these changes in macro‐economic policy.     

Changing directions in Australian housing policies: The end of muddling through?

From the post‐war period through to the 1980s, Australia's housing system was dominated by tenure‐based policies directed towards home ownership and the provision of public housing. Private tenants were virtually excluded from housing assistance of any form. The 1990s, however, have seen an apparent U‐turn in housing policies with elimination of explicit home ownership policies, the withdrawal from direct involvement in public housing funding and a rapid expansion of rental assistance for private tenants. Australia is about to follow its New Zealand neighbour in undertaking a wholesale shift away from direct intervention in the production of housing and moving towards consumer subsidies which rely on the effective operation of the private sector in meeting housing needs. This paper provides a brief overview of changes in policies towards home ownership, public rental and private rental, a framework for interpreting these and an assessment of the appropriateness of the directions currently being followed in light of current economic trends.     

Social Housing as a Transitional Tenure? Reflections on the Netherlands' New Housing Memorandum 2000-2010

This contribution gives some reflections on the Netherlands' New Housing Memorandum 2000-2010, which was published on 15 May 2000. This Housing Memorandum urges the housing corporations (the social housing organisations which own 37 per cent of the housing stock) to sell 500 000 dwellings in 10 years. This seems to confirm Harloe's assertion that social housing in Europe is only a transitional tenure. Even in the Netherlands-champion of social rented housing within the European Union-the owner occupied sector would seem destined to marginalise the social rented sector in the long run. This paper argues that the housing corporations, being private, independent social entrepreneurs, will be only partially inclined to take the political message of the Housing Memorandum to heart. It is expected that the Dutch social rented sector will remain a differentiated sector and continue to blossom alongside home ownership. Harloe's theory will, in short, not be confirmed by the housing developments in the Netherlands.     

Power,Discursive Space and Institutional Practices in the Construction of Housing Problems

A constructionist approach to the study of social problems and housing policy provides a theoretically informed means of analysing the ways in which housing policy is formulated and implemented. Yet despite a strong commitment by housing researchers to policy relevance, constructionist studies of how specific social problems are generated and deployed have so far made only a limited impact on housing research. The paper addresses this lacuna by first discussing important literature and the key conceptual issues in this field of study. This is followed by a discussion of two examples from recent UK housing policy (the shift in the 1980s from defining lone mothers as the victims of housing shortages to a morally questionable group subverting needs-based allocation policies and the re-emergence of anti-social behaviour as a problem on housing estates). The paper's conclusion is that the 'construction of problems' provides a rich source of new material as well as offering significant opportunities to develop a more critically informed housing research agenda.     

POLICY REVIEW - Regime Shifts in Dutch Housing Policy

Since the early 1980s many Western governments have been faced with the challenge of dismantling their unwieldy social policy systems. In the Netherlands, housing policies were one of the first fields to undergo the shift from the previous patterns of direct 'governmental' intervention to the new regimes of 'governance'. The social and political aspirations of housing policy were not put aside however. Instead, they are now being pursued by establishing rules which determine the relations between social and governmental actors in another way (the new regime of 'order' rules). The author analyses the emergence of the rules of the new regime and discusses some of the institutional and distributive implications.     

Housing Reform and its Impacts on the Urban Poor in China

Housing provision in Chinese cities has experienced many changes since 1979 when the country embarked on major economic reform. During the late 1980s and the 1990s many publicly owned houses were sold to their existing tenants or other public sector employees. Large numbers of new houses were built by commercial property developers for the emerging urban housing market. As a result, new patterns of residents have emerged. Housing areas of different standards for different social groups became a dominant feature of large Chinese cities at the end of the 1990s. Will the urban poor benefit from these changes and what is their housing situation like under the reformed system? This paper addresses these questions by examining the nature of the emerging urban poor and their accessibility to housing. It involves an assessment of the implications of recent housing reform policies for the disadvantaged groups. The paper identifies two major groups of urban poor in Chinese cities: the poor among the official urban residents and the poor rural to urban migrants. It concludes that while housing problems of the official urban poor have been recognised, there is no formal policy in relation to housing provision for the unofficial poor.     

Is private rental an option for urban housing provision in Hungary?

By 1998, 91 percent of all housing units in Hungary were occupied by owners –an extremely high percentage by international standards. Today's Hungarian housing politicians, whose anti-rental convictions stem from the experience of the previous regime, tend to disregard arguments about the consequences of this bias: the negative impact on mobility, the creation of a rigid housing market (lack of adaptability to the housing market), hardships in addressing social problems, conflicts between generations (obligations borne by elder generations) as well as the `compulsory' purchase of housing by younger generations and the drain of subsidies. There is extensive evidence that current Hungarian regulations are hostile to rental housing. With subsidies channeled to the ownership sector (housing construction benefits, interest subsidies, local subsidies, employer subsidies) as well as tax relief (purchase of privately owned housing, savings-linked subsidies, imputed rents), it is more expensive for households to rent than to buy or build housing. This leads to a distorted economic structure and a distorted use of society's resources. A housing policy based on modern economic theory pursues neutral subsidy and tax policies concerning ownership. Thus, from an economic point of view, there is no reason to prefer owner-occupied housing to rental housing. This paper explains why the private and public rental sectors are so small. But at a deeper level, the question is why private rented housing exists at all. The paper also explores related questions: who tend to rent out their units, why, for how long and how much; and who tend to rent these units, why do they rent them, and at what prices? The key policy issue is to define the basic impediments to the sector's expansion. On this basis, a new housing policy program can be formulated.     

Professionalism in China's building sector: an economic governance perspective

As the third force beside markets and governments, professionalism emerged to protect the interests of civil society, and it has played a unique role in the building sector. By conceptualizing professionalism as a community-based governance structure, an economic governance perspective is adopted to examine professionalism in China's building sector. The development of professionalism in China's building sector is reviewed, and both its achievements and its weaknesses are assessed. Root-cause analysis reveals that the primary impediment to building professionalism is the imbalanced relationship between markets, governments and professionals. It is argued that the success of professionalism in China's building sector is dependent ultimately on whether the government can change its overly dominant role in the economy. To address the concern of creating an independent, vibrant professional culture that contributes to the long-term public interest, the following are recommended: separating professional associations and relevant bodies from government agencies completely; improving the administrative system for both practice qualification and market access; and increasing the proportion of non-government investments to change the imbalanced relationship between professionals and public clients.     

THE LANDSCAPE OF URBAN PRESERVATION: A SPATIAL ANALYSIS OF FEDERAL REHABILITATION TAX CREDITS IN RICHMOND,VIRGINIA

Historic preservationists tout the federal historic rehabilitation tax credit (RTC) as one of the nation's most successful urban revitalization programs, but minimal research exists on the local use of this private‐sector, market‐responsive tool. Using geocoded data on RTC investments in Richmond, Virginia that occurred between 1997 and 2010, the research explores the city's RTC geography, finding that these investments are most intense in the central city, but have centrifugally diffused outward over time. The research shows that RTC investments are contributing to Richmond's postindustrial transformation, offer a measure of resiliency in the recently volatile real estate market, and function as a de facto housing policy without directly resulting in gentrification. The research offers policymakers improved understanding about the urban geography and spatial effects of RTCs and outlines potential policies that can capitalize on and further encourage these private‐sector investments.     

From Asset Based Welfare to Welfare Housing? The Changing Function of Social Housing in Ireland

This paper examines a distinctive and significant aspect of social housing in Ireland—its change in function from an asset-based role in welfare support to a more standard model of welfare housing. It outlines the nationalist and agrarian drivers which expanded the initial role of social housing beyond the goal of improving housing conditions for the poor towards the goal of extending homeownership, and assesses whether this focus made it more similar to the ‘asset based welfare’ approach to housing found in South-East Asia than to social housing in Western Europe. From the mid-1980s, the role of Irish social housing changed as the sector contracted and evolved towards the model of welfare housing now found in many other Western countries. Policy makers have struggled to address the implications of this transition and vestiges of social housing's traditional function are still evident, consequently the boundaries between social housing, private renting and homeownership in Ireland have grown increasingly nebulous.     

Bauhaus on trial: Aluminum city terrace and federal defence housing policy during World War II

This article examines the housing constructed by the US government for industrial workers under the Lanham Act before the US entrance into World War II. It focuses on Aluminum City Terrace (ACT), a housing development built by the US Federal Works Agency in 1941–42. ACT was constructed in New Kensington, Pennsylvania, a mill town located approximately twenty miles from Pittsburgh. The article is based on federal housing records, the papers of federal housing officials and interviews with residents.

Historians and scholars of federal housing policy have traditionally argued that the innovative housing programmes of the New Deal were victims of increasing public and Congressional hostility and mobilization for war. This article argues that in the early phases of its existence, the defence housing programme was committed to the New Deal goal of building modern European‐styled housing developments which were intended to serve as models for private development. During 1941 and 1942, the Federal Works Agency hired renowned modern architects to design model defence housing developments. Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer, formerly of Germany's Bauhaus School of Design, were hired to design ACT in 1941.

The Federal Works Agency's plan to erect a Bauhaus‐styled housing development in New Kensington met with community opposition. ACT's critics were unable, however, to prevent its construction. ACT's notoriety grew after 1948, when the residents purchased the development from the federal government under the Mutual Ownership Plan. The Mutual Ownership Plan was a cooperative housing plan that originated in the New Deal and was resurrected by federal housing officials seeking a way of selling defence housing developments like ACT without displacing the residents. ACT is still owned by the residents on a mutual basis today. The development provides low‐cost housing and is characterized by a sense of community spirit among residents. ACT never served as a model for postwar housing because it did not offer the traditional single‐family, suburban housing Americans wanted.     

Policy Review: Reforming Private Housing Finance: Evaluating the Achievements of the Clinton Administration

The financial infrastructure of guarantees, insurance and regulation that underpins US housing markets is an important federal policy tool. Historically, housing policy in the US has relied much more heavily on regulating private market actors to achieve public goals, than it has on direct expenditures. But the commonalities between the US and restructured welfare states such as the UK and Canada have become more striking in recent decades. Similar dilemmas face policy makers in many settings: if homeownership is to be the centerpiece of housing policy, how do we ensure it is affordable and sustainable for those once served by a larger social housing sector? If direct expenditures are to be cut back, with what do we replace them? The story of the Clinton administration's efforts to reform the US financial infrastructure illustrates how these dilemmas have been addressed (although obviously not resolved) in a specific instance.     

The Development of Housing Policy in Singapore and the Sources of Path Dependence

This paper aims to examine the development of housing policy in Singapore from British colonial rule to the era of Lee Kuan Yew (1959–1990) and analyse what factors structured path dependence in the Singaporean context. Lee Kuan Yew’s government had been consistently committed to building and running the public housing sector. The strong initiative in public housing was aimed at serving development strategies and nation-building processes, rather than creating entitlement to social rights. In addition, people who purchased or would purchase public housing recognized the benefits from housing policies as available assets and readily mobilized them over time. Finally, the paper concludes that two factors – the government’s pursuit of public housing and the asset-specific elements of housing schemes – are the principal sources of path dependence in Singaporean housing policy.     

Housing finance for lower income urban households in Zimbabwe

Housing finance systems in developing countries have been the subject of considerable international agency research and lending attention in recent years. The lack of availability of finance for public sector housing programmes and for the purchase of construction of housing by all income groups in urban areas is typically a major constraint on the ability of supply to meet demand. However, national efforts have often not dealt systematically with the housing finance system as a whole. The housing finance system in Zimbabwe is described and critically analysed in this paper, paying particular attention to the provision of funds for local authority housing programmes for low income residents, the place of housing finance institutions in the national finance system, the ability of the building societies to attract savings, and their lending programmes. The results of government measures to transfer responsibility for lending to low‐income households from local authorities to the building societies since the mid‐1980s are evaluated. It is concluded that Zimbabwe has an unusually well‐developed financial sector and housing finance system for a recently independent developing country. Although this evolved to meet the needs of the settler population, the extension of its activities into lending for low‐income aided self‐help housing was successful, within limits. However, events of the early 1990s demonstrate the vulnerability of such a system to the changes accompanying liberalisation. Suggestions are made for further possible reforms and the importance of monitoring the effects of economic liberalisation on the system and its beneficiaries stressed.     

Integration in the Regions: Cross-sectoral Housing Policy Co-ordination at Regional Level

This paper considers policy integration between housing and other sectors at regional level, focusing on Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) and regional planning. Regional housing structures and policies have had only a marginal impact on other sectors and this seems to be due in part to the fragmented nature of the housing sector, in particular to limited private sector involvement in regional housing structures. RDA emphasis on economic growth over social and regeneration issues also acts as a barrier to RDA engagement with housing. Housing involvement in planning is hindered by lengthy and cumbersome planning processes. Fragmentation and lack of co-ordination, in fact, seem to be characteristic of the regional level in England and this acts as a general barrier to integration, along with the lack of a mechanism for dealing with conflicting priorities, pointing to a pressing need for the government's proposed directly elected Regional Assemblies.     

住房合作社对土耳其住房供应的贡献

在土耳其，从20世纪30年代中期开始，合作社就一直向其成员（股东）提供住房。房屋建造完成后，合作社成员对其住房拥有完全产权，合作社完成任务即告解散。与许多欧洲国家的合作社不同，土耳其的合作社并不建造用于租用的住房，因为立法并未规定住房合作社有相关责任。20世纪80年代的上半年，合作社提供的住房开始增多。在20世纪的最后20年，约1／4的新住房是由合作社建造的。地方和中央政府向合作社提供支持，形式包括在分配公共资金贷款、销售由地方政府或中央政府部门开发的土地方面优先考虑住房合作社，以及优先考虑向合作社的住房项目提供基础设施。公共部门提供的各类支持大多数包含政府补贴的形式。