Self-help Housing and Co-operation in Post-war Australia

Australia experienced a self-help housing boom after World War Two which played an important part in overcoming a serious housing shortage. This paper looks at the magnitude of the boom and at the factors which made it possible. It argues that the basic factor motivating amateur builders was the absolute scarcity of accommodation rather than its high cost. There were significant regional variations in the extent of self-help activity. These are best explained by the extent of public housing provision. Where state governments invested heavily in public housing there was less self-help activity. The paper also traces the sources of finance used by owner-builders and the extent of co-operation amongst them.     

Slipping through the Cracks: The Origins of Aided Self-help Housing, 1918-53

The history of aided self-help housing, that is, of housing built with state assistance by families for their own use, is largely unknown. There is a widespread misapprehensionthat such a policy was first discussed and practised during the 1960s, in the context of the Third World. In fact, it was adopted in the Soviet Union, and in many European nations and cities, notably Vienna and Stockholm, after the First World War. During the 1930s it was incorporated into homestead schemes, and praised, on both sides of the Atlantic. Then, for a time after the Second World War, it was widely debated and adopted in many of the more advanced industrial societies. Unlike public housing or market-oriented policies, aided self-help never had strong political or ideological associations. In one sense this was a strength: at different places and times, it was endorsed from all sides of the political spectrum. In other respects its detachment from parties and ideologies was a weakness. It was not promoted by any political constituency, and aroused opposition from the building industry and trades. At best aided self-help has sometimes filled, and at the worst it has slipped through, the cracks in state housing policy.     

Financing Self-help Housing: Evidence from Bogotá, Colombia

A priority for housing policy in most Third World countries is to channel credit to the poor. Unfortunately, this has proved difficult to achieve as formal lending institutions are reluctant to lend to the poor. This paper examines how formal lenders deal with self-help housing in Bogotá, Colombia. It also compares how housing construction and/or purchase is financed in four self-help settlements and in two formally constructed, low-income estates in the city. Finally, some ideas are presented about how housing finance for the poor might be improved.     

Residents Lead: User-Controlled Housing Practices and Attitudes in Poor Communities in Cairo,Egypt

It is argued that low-income public housing in Cairo has witnessed shortcomings in responding to its inhabitants’ needs. The expert-based, top-down approach in housing processes, widely adopted in most developing countries, including Egypt, is argued to be the main reason for these shortcomings. On the other hand, the limited experimental institutionalized participatory experiences in Cairo, mainly in the form of self-help schemes, were also incapable of meeting many of their goals. As an alternative participatory approach, the research discussed the experiences and approaches of ‘user-controlled housing’ processes in which it was envisaged that people would build dwellings of types and qualities corresponding to their own social codes and cultural behaviour. A theoretical model for the main concepts of this proposed approach was developed. To test this model, field investigations about the practices and attitudes of the low-income residents in Cairo relevant to the user-controlled housing processes were conducted and thus a new amended theoretical model has been initiated and recommended in terms of proposed low-income housing policies in Cairo.     

Vacant residential buildings as potential reserves: a geographical and statistical study

Vacant housing has been associated with a variety of interests from economic implications and consequences for the urban structure to the possibility of providing housing for the homeless. In addition to these social and financial aspects, unused buildings have resources embedded in them. They take land from other activities and contain refined natural resources in the form of building components and materials. Therefore, empty buildings can be regarded as reserves for housing and repositories for urban mining, i.e. material extraction. In doing so, these buildings contribute to the resilience of cities. This geographical and statistical study on residential vacancies is situated in Finland, where empty homes may also keep using energy and producing emissions. The research material consists of a vast dataset of all residential buildings with vacancies in Finland in mid-2014, a total of 275 486 buildings with 1 100 267 occupied and 378 802 unoccupied dwellings (52% of the Finnish housing stock). The paper shows several characteristics that increase the understanding of vacancies and their role in the dynamics of the building stock. Public policy should address the issue of vacancy, not only because of social and economic implications but also because of its environmental impacts and opportunities.     

Financial restructuring and housing markets in Finland

In Western, industrialised countries, houses are typically expensive in relation to average incomes so that their production and exchange are facilitated by extensive systems of finance as well as being a major source of profit for the suppliers of finance. Also typically, national financial systems have been, and continue to be, subject to fundamental changes. These can be expected to lead to a changed relationship between housing and financial markets, which will lead to further changes in both. In this paper, against a background of theoretical assessments of the consequences, recent and ongoing changes affecting financial markets in Finland are explored. It considers how these might affect Finland's home ownership market through possible developments in the availability of credit, subsidies and prices.     

Local Innovation And Global Change: ‘Remaking The Welfare State’ In Sweden1

Swedish urban planning and housing policies have been seen as exemplars by many Australian policy makers. The mixture of state activism, strong local government, broad concepts of welfare policy and social housing, coupled with wide community acceptance of these ideals, has enabled major innovations in housing policy. This article describes the historical background and recent changes to these policies within Sweden's changing political framework. It also shows that global fiscal changes, coupled with Sweden's entry into the ‘federalising’ European Union, have changed the context of these policies. Swedish housing and urban policy is changing; Swedish local government has a strong role in the development and implementation of these changing policies. There are many interesting lessons for Australian urban policy in these changes.     

上海市住房保障体系建设概述

目前,上海已基本构建起廉租住房、经济适用住房、公共租赁住房、动迁安置住房＂四位一体＂的住房保障体系。廉租住房、经济适用住房分别解决城镇户籍低收入和中低收入家庭的住房困难;公共租赁住房主要解决城镇户籍青年职工、来沪务工人员和引进人才等常住人口的阶段性居住困难;动迁安置住房主要解决城市改造区域动迁居民的住房改善问题。各项基本制度和配套政策已在推行实施,并将不断优化完善。＂十二五＂规划期间,上海居民的住房困难将得到明显改善。     

Housing Policies and the Little Tigers: How Do They Compare with Other Industrialised Countries?

This paper locates the housing policies of the little tiger countries-Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan-in the policy regimes approach found in the literature dealing with other industrialised countries. It begins by establishing three regime types-liberal, communist and corporatist-describing different balances of market and state in the development, construction and consumption phases of housing provision. Building on a discussion of the general approach in the little tiger countries to economic and social policy, and particularly of the nature and extent of state intervention in their housing policies, it proposes that together they represent a fourth regime type, one that can be characterised as corporatist in production and liberal in consumption.     

House for Sale? The Self-help Housing Market in Pereira,Colombia

This paper aims to contribute to the discussion of the nature of the self-help housing market by analysing its extent and mode of operation in four self-help settlements in the intermediate sized city of Pereira, Colombia. The evidence from the survey settlements suggests that the market for self-help houses is small. Self-help settlements are dominated by a land market rather than by a housing market, although the distinction between the two is far from clear cut. Few self-help houses enter the property market because: many self-help households have no intention of selling their house after all the hard work that went into building it; it is difficult for households who wish to purchase dwellings in self-help settlements to raise the necessary finance; and the lack of title deeds is probably also a limiting factor.     

More than twenty years after the repeal of the Group Areas Act: housing, spatial planning and urban development in post-apartheid South Africa

More than twenty years after the repeal of the Group Areas Act, South Africa is facing a number of challenges with regards to housing, spatial planning and urban development. Government institutions, scholars, NGO’s and local communities have been looking for innovative ways to improve the housing conditions of all South Africans. With this special issue, we aim to demonstrate that international insights cannot only be relevant to understand and enrich South African cases, but that an in-depth analysis of the South African experiments can also be meaningful for academic analyses and political decisions in other parts of the world. In order to stimulate such a cross-fertilization, this article will briefly summarize the current situation in South Africa in the public housing sector, the private housing sector and the self-help approach. We will also introduce the eight papers of this special issue.     

The peoples housing process … getting the quality in the quantity?

This paper introduces the PHP (People’s Housing Process) approach to housing provision in South-Africa as a noteworthy third way that allows housing provision for the urban poor. In this contribution we will illustrate how, in an assisted approach of self-help housing, the government can play an important role in safeguarding the production of homes rather than merely providing dwellings. In doing so taking into account the more intangible and symbolic meaning of the house and home, which we argue is a central factor for a sustainable housing strategy. This assisted self-help housing scheme was approved in 1998 and was inspired by the work of the homeless people’s federation and saving and housing schemes from around the globe. The further development of the scheme has been a challenging process but we argue that the PHP programme deserves more attention as a housing provision mechanism. Additionally, one of the strengths of the PHP approach is its applicability in a wider area of project types, from township upgrading to hostel redevelopment projects, and illustrated in this contribution by introducing the hostel redevelopment poject Ilinge Labahlali in Cape Town. In what follows, the PHP approach is introduced, and the increasing interest of the government illustrated. Then, using two case studies, the importance of the assistance of the government and NGOs is elaborated upon. In conclusion the challenges that still need to be met are highlighted.     

Towards the More Effective Use of Housing Finance and Subsidy

The UK provides an important case study of both the potential for restructuring traditional housing finance systems and the outcome of such restructuring. During the period 1975–2000 the UK government undertook a piece-by-piece restructuring of housing finance. The major objectives of this restructuring included bringing public expenditure under control, ensuring that a high proportion of housing costs were paid by the direct beneficiaries and targeting available subsidy more directly on those in housing need. This agenda was supported by more general policies of liberalisation and privatisation, and particularly by the growth in asset values during the 1970s and 1980s and by macro-economic stabilisation during the 1990s. Based on the desktop analysis undertaken for the Evaluation of English Housing Policy Review this paper takes four specific policies and clarifies how political priorities and the economic environment came together to make policy change possible. It then evaluates the outcomes of these policies both in terms of their immediate goals and the more general objectives of housing policy. The incremental approach favoured by the government appears to have been successful in its own terms, but the result is far from a coherent and sustainable housing finance policy. The conclusions stress more general lessons some of which have implications for effective restructuring in other countries.     

Private sector housing in urban China since 1949: The case of Xian

Research on urban housing policies in socialist China and Eastern European countries has concentrated on understanding the production and distribution of state housing. More recently researchers have shifted their attention to the commodification of urban housing and establishment of private housing markets. A very important aspect of socialist housing ‐ the process of nationalisation of privately owned urban housing in the early period of socialist development ‐ has been relatively neglected. Ignoring this aspect of the historical background of socialist urban housing policy may create difficulties in understanding the nature of the public sector and recent privatisation experience.

This paper intends to fill this gap in relation to China by examining both the nationalisation of urban privately owned housing in the early years of socialism and the more recent privatisation and commercialisation of the urban housing sector. This highlights shifting approaches to the urban housing market in different periods of socialist development and helps in understanding recent developments in housing reform. It examines the development of policy and the resultant impacts on the private housing market in Xian, one of the major cities in central China. The pattern of private ownership, the state policy of nationalisation and the more recent commercialisation of urban public sector housing are the main issues examined.     

The Long Road to Housing Sector Reform: Lessons from the Chilean Housing Experience

The Chilean housing policy, which anticipated the enabling approach widely advocated by international institutions in the 1990s, has succeeded in improving housing conditions in the country. The analysis of this experience indicates that this success only partially comes from reforms in the housing sector, and that its financial mechanisms are the result of reforms in capital markets and a stable macroeconomic environment. Lessons from this experience include the need for an integrated approach to reform including housing production and financing mechanisms and the full consideration and prevention of the urban impacts of housing policies that succeed in increasing housing production.     

Housing Finance Trapped in a Dilemma of Perceptions: Affordability Criteria for the Urban Poor in India Questioned

This paper demonstrates how formal housing finance is the product of the perceptions that prevail among the middle and upper classes, who as policy-makers, economists and managers, determine how housing finance institutions fix the terms and conditions of housing loans for the urban poor. They use affordability criteria that fit the purchase or construction of a house in one go. However, affordability criteria for the urban poor have to be linked with practices of incremental building and consequently incremental financing. Failing to do so leads to serious mismatches between the demand and supply of formal housing finance for the urban poor. To be able to serve the poor adequately, the middle and upper classes should stop aiming at the financing of housing constructed in one go. Instead, they should open their minds to the building and financing practices of the urban poor.     

Housing analysis: Time for a theoretical refocus?

Housing analysis traditionally focuses on the consumption and allocation aspects of housing provision, concentrating particularly on state policies towards housing tenures. This paper presents a theoretical critique of the consumption‐orientated emphasis, and suggests an alternative framework based on structures of housing provision. It is argued that to look at consumption‐related issues in the context of state housing policies is important, but an adequate analysis must place such an investigation in terms of the totality of social relations associated with the form of housing provision in question.     

A housing allowance for the UK? Preconditions for an income‐related housing subsidy

This paper complements the policy focus of Kemp (1994) who addresses the options for housing benefit reform in the UK. By using as general a framework as possible to consider the basic choices, it is apparent that a move to an ex ante form of allowance, can, under most circumstances, be considered to be beneficial—provided that complementary policies evolve alongside changes to personal housing subsidies. It is also clear that levels of support, the degree of progressivity and of targeting cannot be fully answered with theorising by economists. There are fundamental issues concerning just at what level adequate social security provision should be in a modern economy. Personal housing subsidies are vital to low‐income housing consumption and are the core of the UK's housing finance system. It is all the more important, therefore, that the vast resources spent on housing allowances are on schemes which are generally considered efficient and fair.