Obligations and Expectations: Perceived Relationship between Transnational Housing Investment and Housing Consumption Decisions among Ghanaian Immigrants in Canada

Transnational housing investment is a pervasive practice among many migrant groups residing in various destination countries; including Ghanaian migrants living in Canada. For many, the need to engage in transnational housing investment is beyond the standard rationale and has two prime significance; symbolic and practical utility. Engagement in this endeavour requires substantial financial commitments over extensive periods of time with potential consequences for various aspects of immigrants’ lives in their destination areas including their housing consumption. This paper examines perceived influence of such long-term commitments on housing consumption decisions among Ghanaian immigrants in the Greater Toronto Area using in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. The findings show that although engagement in transnational housing is associated with constraints on immigrants’ decision to enter homeownership, type of dwelling to rent and the neighbourhood choices, it was also associated with a sense of pride, success and integration into Canadian society. The paper concludes that a broader theoretical discussion of housing integration is necessary. Specifically, it calls for a redefinition of the measures of immigrant housing integration in particular – which narrowly considers destination parameters – to one that includes transnational factors as critical in moving the debate on understanding immigrant integration in general.     

加拿大多伦多市低收入者住房保障政策

加拿大多伦多市具有较多的低收入者,加拿大为解决这些居民的住房问题,制定了一系列住房保障政策。文章详述了加拿大多伦多市的几种建房援助计划,以供我国政府解决低收入者的住房问题提供参考。     

加拿大多伦多雪邦公园

雪邦公园是多伦多安大略湖畔一个重要的重建复兴项目,由原来沿着安大略湖畔的棕地开发而来,它包含了大型的文体娱乐设施,并采用富有诗意的手法对雨水径流进行处理。雪邦公园通过将雨水管理、景观、建筑、工程与艺术天衣无缝地有机结合,是加拿大首座将紫外线净化设施结合到社区雨水治理的公园,成为了一个超越传统定义的公共空间。     

Housing Careers: Immigrants in Local Swedish Housing Markets

Immigration to Sweden has changed character between the 1960s and today. Early immigration occurred as a response to labour market need whereas immigrants arriving during the last decade have had difficulties entering the labour market. The aim of this study is to analyse the housing careers of different immigrant groups within different local housing markets. The housing careers of immigrant groups are then compared and related to the housing career of the total population. Earlier studies have shown that the year of immigration is of importance for the type of housing career made as well as the cultural distance between the immigrant group and the Swedish population. The immigrants included in this study have arrived from Finland, ex-Yugoslavia, Chile, Africa, Iran and Turkey, representing the three different phases of immigration to Sweden. The analyses here show that both the structure of the local housing market and time spent in Sweden are important to the housing careers of immigrants.     

香港公屋本质,公屋设计和居住实态

文章分析了香港在不同时期的公屋政策，公屋设计及居住实态。     

Exploring housing careers among Ghanaians in Toronto,Canada

The argument that a successful housing career plays an important role in the immigrant integration process has been well established in the literature. Most studies on immigrant housing career do so without reference to the housing situation of immigrants in their homeland. Since housing career relates to sequence of dwellings people occupy throughout their life-course, an analysis of immigrants housing career should also begin with immigrants housing situation in the homeland. Unless we understand the sequence of dwellings that immigrants occupy throughout their life course in both the country of origin and host society, we will fail to fully comprehend dynamics of their housing career over their life-course. Using mixed method, this study illustrates the role of housing career in the integration process of Ghanaians in Toronto in the Canadian society. The study adds to the housing career literature by capturing the sequence of dwelling that immigrants occupy throughout their life course in both the country of origin and destination country.     

多伦多大学伍兹沃斯学院改扩建工程

伍兹沃斯学院项目的建设,确立了多伦多大学非全日制教育的重要地位,同时也反映了建筑师与业主、使用者之间深层次的成功合作。该项目来自学生的资助占到总投资的一半以上,从某种     

花园中的住宅

高层住宅小区在规划设计时常遇到车行交通和环境景观两个相互矛盾系统,该文对一个高层住宅小区尝试了针对性的解决方法,以期能够为设计同行提供一些借鉴。     

商住小区环境与住宅的探讨

商住小区的设计往往受到众多条件的限制,如何在各种制约下做出有新意的、高品质的设计方案,确是一个挑战.下面就一个商住小区规划设计的实例与各位同仁一同探讨.     

住宅的室内布置

家具是住宅建筑中不可或缺的元素,作为室内构成的重要组成部分,它的布置和摆设对室内功能的合理应用有着至关重要的作用。同时家具是房间布置的主体部分,对居室的美化装饰影响极大。家具的摆设、颜色、风格不合理不仅不美观不协调而且不实用,甚至给生活带来种种不便。     

Divine Living: Marketing and Selling Churches as Lofts in Toronto,Canada

In recent years, a growing number of churches no longer used by religious groups have been converted to loft housing. Church lofts offer consumers heritage architecture and unique aesthetics, elements that distinguish these spaces in the housing market. In order to sell converted churches as viable homes, however, developers and their marketing teams deploy a variety of marketing strategies. Through an analysis of advertising media in Toronto, Ontario, in this paper, I show how former churches are repackaged and promoted with a heritage identity that fits a normative ideal of upscale loft living. In particular, I analyse three central marketing themes: the reinvention of a church to a house and home, the production of identity through place names and the representation of church lofts in the urban landscape. Woven together, these themes rewrite a building’s religious past and legitimize an emerging housing market that makes use of built religious heritage.     

Housing Consumption and Residential Crowding in U.S. Housing Markets

As families progress through the life cycle they generate different needs for housing space. The ability to satisfy these needs is clearly dependent on income, but at the same time it is affected by changes in household composition. The aggregate outcomes of the individual ability to adjust housing needs can be seen as a measure of the success of the housing market. This article examines changes in housing space consumption in the United States in the last two and a half decades at both the individual level and in aggregate outcomes. The research uses the data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to explore the relationship of housing consumption to income, and the overall success of the adjustment process. Despite the concerns about housing affordability and income polarization in large metropolitan housing markets, the US housing market as a whole, as measured by crowding and roomstress, is continuing to provide a wide range of paths to increased consumption. At the same time the research shows that there is greater pressure on housing consumption in markets with substantial recent immigration.     

Housing Priorities,Settlement Patterns,and Urban Development in Modernizing Countries

Attempts to plan the development of cities in modernizing countries and to improve housing standards are often confounded by the autonomous action of low-income squatters and clandestine developers. In the most rapidly urbanizing areas, squatter developers dominate contemporary urban growth, reducing the planners' sphere of influence to those areas developed by wealthier minorities and public institutions. This historically unprecedented, politically and economically dangerous, loss of control over major parts of urban growth can be interpreted as the result of conflicts between government programs and the demands of the people. Until realignment of institutional norms and action is accomplished, the major resource for infrastructure development, the collective will and savings of the common people, cannot be coordinated with government plans and policies. A preliminary model of the settlement process in transitional countries is presented here to illustrate the dynamics of this problem.     

The Housing Consequences of Living Arrangement Choices in Young Adulthood

This paper documents the consequences of the first living arrangements of young adults after leaving the parental home (without a partner, cohabiting, or married) for their housing situation, whether they rent independently, share accommodation, or own their own homes, both immediately after leaving home and in the first eight years after leaving. Data are analysed from two retrospective life-course surveys conducted in the Netherlands in the 1990s, using multinomial logistic regression models. The paper finds a strong influence of the timing and pathway of leaving on the housing situation immediately after leaving: those nest-leavers who make stronger commitments in their household careers (by cohabiting, or by marrying) are more likely to own a home and less likely to share. Although through the years after leaving home this influence decreases, it remains discernible and significant even eight years after leaving. This is remarkable, given the fluidity of the housing careers of nest-leavers.     

发达国家郊区发展系列谈之九加拿大的都市郊区——以多伦多都市区为例

一、多伦多市的郊区（一）大多伦多地区的人口和土地多伦多市是加拿大人口最多的城市和北美第五大城市,是加拿大的金融中心,也是多伦多都市区和大多伦多地区经济、文化和政治中心。整个城市南北宽20公里,沿安大略湖东西长43公里,辖区面积630平方公里。2006年统计人口为250．3281万人,人口密度每平方公里3972人,地区编码为416。这里之所以提到地区编码是因为当地人十分看重地区编码,这个编码只在多伦多市里使用,而多伦多大部分郊区则使用905的地区编码。     

From Rubble to Refuge—Tommy Thompson Park in Toronto,Canada

Tommy Thompson Park in the city of Toronto, Canada was originally a massive landfilling project that extended 5 kilometers out into Lake Ontario. It was constructed from construction rubble and harbor dredge from the 1950s through the late 1970s, when the project was halted due to changing economic conditions. Left to its own devices, the landfill spontaneously evolved into a “nature preserve” when innumerable plants from around the world established themselves and hundreds of migrating bird species descended on the site for nesting and feeding. In the 1990s, the city of Toronto took control of the site and transformed it into a park—Tommy Thompson Park—after a carefully planned design and construction process. The design interventions enhanced public accessibility, wildlife and habitat diversity, and ecological functionality. Tommy Thompson Park is an ideal case study for examining the dynamic interaction between spontaneity and design and for how, over time, these seemingly contradictory processes can come together harmoniously.