Housing Policies

Im Gegensatz zum internationalen Lobgesang über die soziale Wohnungspolitik in Wien, zeigt sich heute ein erschreckendes Bild: Die Mieten explodieren, günstige Wohnungen sind knapp und immer mehr Menschen können sich die Wohnungskosten nur mehr schwer leisten. Rassismus am Wohnungsmarkt und verschärfte Zugangsrichtlinien im sozialen Wohnbau machen es für viele Bewohner_innen dieser Stadt zusätzlich schwer, angemessenen Wohnraum zu finden.

In the face of a housing crisis rooted in commodification, there is growing alignment within both activist and scholarly circles over the need to reverse this trend and move toward decommodification. There is work left to be done, however, in conceptualizing how to get there. Housing and tenant groups challenge the logic of extraction through their day-to-day struggles in privately-held rental housing. The policy priorities of this movement are rooted in housing justice. By giving tenants more power over where they live through rent regulation, eviction protections, robust code enforcement, and other forms of legal recourse, these policies make real estate speculation less profitable. In parallel, there is a growing call for social housing conversions through both public takings and private land and property acquisition to realize a vision of housing that prioritizes decommodification, deep affordability, and democratic management. But how do these visions of housing decommodification relate to one another? In our forthcoming project Pathways to Social Housing in New York, we draw out connections between these different strategies, outlining a broad collection of policies that together can present a road to housing decommodification, both within our state and elsewhere around the country. In particular, we argue that to decommodify urban property, we need to fight not only for policy and funding which transfers land and housing to social ownership, but also for policies that make extractive and predatory housing models less viable and organizing more feasible. We need a strategy that incorporates both social housing and housing justice.

Se analiza la capacidad institucional del Ayuntamiento de Guadalajara, México, respecto a la implementación de la política de vivienda a través de su Instituto Municipal de la Vivienda (IMUVIG). En primer lugar, para poder definir las capacidades institucionales se revisó la literatura, encontrando que su análisis es complejo porque quienes las han definido o medido, no han llegado a un consenso y, en general, se enfocan a aspectos ajenos a las instituciones. Es por ello que se propone un análisis centrado en el neo institucionalismo, a través del enfoque de la lógica institucional. Para su medición se compararon documentos orgánicos y programáticos desde dicho enfoque, encontrándose que la lógica institucional que persigue la organización es de corte estado centrista, mientras que en lo programático es mercantilista. Esta contradicción nos llevó a concluir que la contradicción en la lógica institucional del IMUVIG, provoca que este carezca de capacidad institucional para implementar la política de vivienda, aun poseyendo capacidades técnicas, políticas y administrativas suficientes.

The commodification of art is just as in evidence in the ‘art’ of architecture. Architecture is perhaps the most obviously commodified and the most essential to western capitalism of all the arts. Is architecture an art? Can it ever be de-commodified? I will argue that mass housing is a key example of the commodification of culture in architecture, also however that the self-build form of housing is a potential example of architecture breaking away from this commodification. A return to what N. John Habraken called, in an echo of Read, the natural relationship. This form of architecture and the historic example of The Architects’ Revolutionary Council, as a rebellion from within the profession, will form the basis of my argument.
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ANARCHIST STUDIES Volume 23 Number 2

Located in the southwestern part of China, Chongqing Municipality represents a relatively new political and administrative entity since it was established only in 1997, with the purpose of revitalizing this economically depressed area and providing a direct link with the central government in view of the construction of the Three Gorges Dam. Despite of its short history as municipality, the city of Chongqing is actually a place rich of memories connected not only with the war of Resistance and the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, but also with a more remote past that goes back to the ancient Ba-Shu reign. Therefore, the urban territory is covered with more or less visible traces of architectonic facts that in a particular historical moment have added some significance to the man-environment relationship, re-shaping the understanding of the urban space in virtue of its transformation.
This paper presents some projects of urban parks designed in three different historical circumstances: The Republican period, the establishment of New China after 1949, and the contemporary urban planning envisioned with the purpose of enlarging the urban boundaries of a city in continuous growth. The discourses concerning these public spaces allow the unraveling of their political and cultural meaning in time, while their spatialization as territorial practice implies the performance of specific logics, strongly connected with the need to recursively construct a collective identity in relation to the local. The analysis aims to highlight the planning of these urban spaces as a structure of signification, legitimation, and performative activity in their specific contexts, also considering their contribution to the shaping of the image of the city.

Od poslijeratne obnove i nacionalizacije, preko stambenog prava u okviru “samoupravnog” tržišnog socijalizma do ponovne “privilegirane” privatizacije, veći se gradovi u Hrvatskoj još uvijek bore s problemom nedostatnog i nedostupnog stambenog fonda. Unatoč prepuštanju stambene politike tržišnim mehanizmima, pitanje “krova nad glavom” nije izgubilo svoj politički značaj.

The scale of homelessness in Europe throws a stark light on the right to housing that exists in many European states and in European and International Law. This disparity between legal right and the social reality of homelessness and housing precarity begs the question as to the efficacy of a rights-based approach to housing.

This article examines the ‘enforceable’ right to housing in France, in place since 2007, to explore the efficacy of approaching a chronic lack of housing through justiciable rights. The lack of progress in over a decade of jurisprudence highlights the challenges posed to legal advocacy in this area, particularly when combined with a lack of political will. The article concludes by reflecting on alternative approaches, in which justiciable rights have played less of a role, stressing the need for political and financial commitment over legal rights.

Título:
HABITAÇÃO PARA IDOSOS EM LISBOA: DE COLECTIVA A ASSISTIDA. O CASO DE ALVALADE

A população portuguesa (e mundial) está a envelhecer a um ritmo muito acelerado — Lisboa era já em 2001 a capital europeia da UE15 mais envelhecida, realidade que se agravou desde então.
Esta tendência demográfica de quase inversão da pirâmide demográfica significa que é urgente encontrar uma solução habitacional para os idosos, que constituem o único grupo etário em crescimento. Significa também que as cidades serão progressivamente habitadas por mais idosos, pelo que o quotidiano urbano (em espaços públicos e privados, livres ou construídos) será cada vez mais condicionado pelas restrições dos mais velhos, em termos de acessibilidades ou outros aspectos funcionais.
Objectivo
Para evitar a panaceia da institucionalização em lares de idosos, é urgente propor um novo paradigma habitacional para as pessoas mais velhas: envelhecer em casa.
Metodologia
Sendo Lisboa maioritariamente constituída por edifícios de apartamentos, estudou-se o funcionamento e características das “residências assistidas” de diferentes iniciativas (privada, estatal, IPSS) e dimensões (grande, média e pequena).
Desse estudo retiraram-se ensinamentos que permitissem a sua aplicação aos edifícios normais de habitação colectiva, transformando-os desse modo em edifícios-residência, onde os moradores possam naturalmente envelhecer, em apartamento adaptados ou adaptáveis às diferentes etapas da vida.
Seguidamente estudaram-se edifícios de apartamentos cujas características permitissem encontrar soluções aplicáveis ou extrapoláveis para outros conjuntos habitacionais.
Para cada um dos edifícios existentes que foram seleccionados desenvolveu-se um projecto de adaptação do edifício e dos apartamentos de modo que, com intervenções e custos mínimos, permitisse a sua conversão em condomínio assistido.
Resultados
O Bairro de Alvalade, pela repetição sistemática dos seus edifícios-tipo, permitiu seleccionar seis casos concretos para aplicação de diferentes soluções, no sentido de que passem a funcionar como condomínios assistidos para os seus moradores envelhecidos, evitando (ou adiando) a sua institucionalização.
As soluções projectadas para estes seis edifícios têm a possibilidade inerente de replicação, podendo ser aplicadas a dezenas de edifícios, centenas de apartamentos e milhares de moradores, apenas no Bairro de Alvalade.
Conclusão
Com os modelos de intervenção propostos caso a caso, verificam-se vantagens habitacionais, humanas e urbanas: ganham-se apartamentos mais flexíveis, adaptáveis às diversas fases da vida; os moradores podem envelhecer em casa e no bairro, na companhia de vizinhos e comerciantes que conhecem e em quem confiam; torna-se mais fácil e cómodo para os familiares manterem as rotinas das visitas à casa de sempre; os espaços exteriores públicos tornam-se mais amigos dos idosos (e como tal amigos de todos), com acessibilidade universal; o convívio intergeracional é promovido, dentro de casa, no edifício e no bairro; a flexibilidade do novo modelo permite a renovação natural das gerações dos seus habitantes e novamente o seu envelhecimento em casa, sem segregação edificativa nem estigmatização social — a cidade envelhece e renova-se continuamente.

There is a long lineage in neighbourhood research that has underpinned sustained academic and policy interest in the UK centred on understanding how spatial ‘clusters’ of neighbourhood-based deprivation might be destabilised. This has seen the privileging of composite indices in the analysis of deprivation which have been criticised for fostering a common perception that deprived neighbourhoods are homogeneous in terms of their compositions and underlying structures. Such indices have also been criticised for being ineffective at capturing temporal change, providing only static snapshots of deprivation at particular points in time. This paper focuses on patterns of deprived neighbourhood change in the Greater Manchester city-region between 2001 and 2007. It develops a typology of neighbourhood change that is triangulated with three complementary typologies capturing the socioeconomic and demographic compositions of deprived neighbourhoods; the functional roles played by deprived neighbourhoods in redistributing population through migration; and the spatial contexts in which deprived neighbourhoods are located. The analysis reveals that an over reliance on static indices to measure deprivation has long-served to conceal complexities in the way that deprived neighbourhoods change, owing to their variable structures and contexts. It illustrates the danger that lies in treating all deprived neighbourhoods in the same way.

The review is devoted to the researches of the innovative social policy model "Housing first", which has proved its effectiveness in the last two decades as a means of combating homelessness, primarily street, chronic and recurrent. Initially applied to people with mental illness and then extrapolated to the homeless, the concept has proved its effectiveness in economically developed countries, gradually taking over the countries of the former socialist camp, as well as changing in the direction from patronage of the most vulnerable people towards the recognition of the universal and unconditional principle of the natural human right to housing. It is often accompanied by the radical left ideology. Most of the studies were conducted in UK, USA, France, and Ireland. The most engaged authors are characterized by youth and active involvement in practical protects the rights of the homeless, discriminated ethnic minorities, women and children. Preliminary results of the review indicate that the conscious public demand for the introduction of "Housing first" is increasing in the conditions of rigidly segregated, but out-of-the-state residence of a large number of discriminated urban minorities, combined with increased repressive measures against them as a result of the processes of gentrification of the center. The success of the model is facilitated by careful statistical accounting of the types and forms of settlement of residents, including homelessness, and by field model of social services for all categories of people in need in their places of residence and typical daytime activity. The ethical advantages of the concept are the rejection of all forms of violence and coercion in the course of rehabilitation activities, ideological one are in reducing housing inequality and improving social justice, economic benefits are in reducing the cost of social security. Destigmatization and expansion of cooperation in society are the main social achievements.

L'articolo presenta il caso-studio realizzato al Quarticciolo, quartiere ERP situato nella periferia est di Roma. In primis si inquadra il contesto di studio e si esamina la composizione sociale degli abitanti e le tipologie di condizione abitativa. In seguito si analizzano le pratiche di accesso informale agli alloggi popolari e le istanze che muovono il "Comitato di quartiere Quarticciolo". Obiettivo della ricerca è comprendere le motivazioni e i significati politici assunti dalle pratiche dal basso nei quartieri in cui il disinvestimento delle amministrazioni pubbliche è alto. Le informazioni sono state raccolte attraverso fonti secondarie e metodi qualitativi, come interviste semi-strutturate e osservazione partecipante.

The squatting of popular housing spaces in Rome. The case study of Quarticciolo: genesis and meanings of a phenomenal collective Abstract The article presents a research on the informal access to public housing and on the instances of the "Quarticciolo neighbourhood committee", in the eastern suburban area Quarticciolo that is a popular housing district. The study examines the context and it analyses the social composition of the inhabitants and the different types of housing conditions. The research objective is to understand the political meanings and motivations assumed by bottom-up practices in neighbourhoods where the public administration's disengagement is high. The data have been collected through secondary sources and qualitative methods.

The book highlights important urban development issues in Punjab such as urbanisation, slums, housing, poverty, urban governance, development, infrastructure/ services etc and suggests major reforms to improve quality of life in urban areas.

The seventh goal of the MDGs is to ensure environmental sustainability which includes as its targets: increasing access to new technologies to support sustainable development by making information about sustainable practices more widespread, and bringing new technologies to rural areas such that people will be able to have better access to information and employment without having to migrate to urban areas; these would without doubt help to system the flow of rural-urban migration and as well stem the growth of slums. Good quality housing as a basic need is lacking for a sizeable number of people around the globe but seem most severe in developing economies including Nigeria. Also few houses are available, especially in the urban centers, to the ever increasing number of workers in both formal and informal sectors. The debates on the direction of housing and welfare policy have often been guided by assumptions derived from a preponderance of Anglo-American cases and perspectives. Th...

This paper critically explores the emergence of a market-led real estate market in Ukraine through housing privatization in 1990s to showcase the impact of state interventionism, as well as its absence, on housing conditions and real estate market.

A historical analysis of the geopolitics of real estate with settler-colonialism on the one side and the rise of über-wealthy foreign real estate investors on the other. Individual foreign investment in Western nation states is a long-standing geopolitical issue. The expansion of the middle class in BRICS and Asian countries, and their increased activity in Western real estate markets as foreign investors, have introduced new and revived existing cultural and geopolitical sensitivities.In this book, Dallas Rogers develops a new history of foreign real estate investment by mapping the movement of human and financial capital over more than four centuries. The book argues the reconfiguration of Asian geopolitical power has ruptured the conceptual landscape for understanding international land and real estate relations. Drawing on assemblage theories (Latour, Deleuze and Guattari), assemblage analytical tactics (Sassen and Ong) and discursive media theories (Kittler and Foucault) a series of vignettes of land and real estate crisis are presented. The book demonstrates how foreign land claimers and global real estate professionals colonise, subvert and act beyond the governance structures of settler-societies to facilitate new types of capital circulation and accumulation around the world.

Towarzystwa Budownictwa Społecznego są częścią polityki społecznej i instrumentem polityki mieszkaniowej. Mimo wprowadzanych i projektowanych zmian (np. dochodzenia do własności mieszkania przez najemców), program budownictwa społecznego spełnia wciąż te same funkcje: wspierania dostępności do mieszkań osób lokujących się w sferze „średniej zamożności”. Z całą pewnością jest to ciągle idea szukająca najlepszej formy swojej realizacji. Pomocą w znalezieniu tej formy może być niniejsza książka, która jest próbą odpowiedzi na pytania: kim są lokatorzy TBS-ów? Jak wygląda życie sąsiedzkie w osiedlach budownictwa społecznego? Czy fakt zamieszkiwania „w TBS-ach” może być podstawą wytworzenia się poczucia wspólnoty?

Housing af ordability is one of the key variables that can portray the socio- economic stability and development of a nation. Housing af ordability is important so that houses provided are at reasonable and af ordable prices for all income groups. These have led the Government of Malaysia in formulating policies and programs aim at ensuring Malaysians have the opportunity and chance to obtain an appropriate place to stay. Meanwhile, Singapore is one of the countries being acknowledged for their successful af ordable housing ownership through good housing policies implementation. Consequently, the objective of this research is to analyse the existing housing policies in Singapore and highlight the strength of its policies. The findings showed that the strengths of Singapore housing policies are 1)Government controls 85% of the market for housing while developers only control 15%; 2)Government should assist in loan of ering and ensuring that buyers pay less in monthly mortgage payment; 3)Only citizens and permanent residents are allowed to buy a house; 4)Citizens or permanent residents should only be allowed to buy a maximum of 2 houses at the same time; 5)Mandatory monthly deduction up to 15% of salary and 10% of salary from employer to finance the purchase of an af ordable house. Based on the findings, questionnaire surveys have been developed and distributed to 350 respondents to gain their insights regarding the implementation of Singapore housing policies in Malaysia. Majority of the respondents agreed that Malaysia should implement similar policies to increase the percentage of home buyer in af ordable housing based on 115 returned responses received.

O relatório estrutura-se em três partes: “1- Conceitos e Definições”, “2- Levantamento dos Empreendimentos Existentes na Grande Lisboa” e “3- Estudos de Caso”.

Na primeira parte pretende-se enquadrar o tema, bem como todo o léxico técnico a ele associado, quer a nível nacional quer internacional. De facto a profusão de denominações e variantes usadas para designar o mesmo tipo de alojamento e serviços associados corresponde sobretudo a questões de marketing que dificultam no entanto a sua análise e comparação. Isto deve-se muito ao facto das residências assistidas serem um modelo habitacional recente em Portugal (e internacionalmente), ainda em processo de configuração tipológica e funcional, sem tradição estabilizada nem regulamentação de enquadramento.

Na segunda parte, pretendemos inventariar todos os empreendimentos existentes na área da Grande Lisboa, por forma a traçar um cenário da realidade deste tipo de habitação. Optámos por esta delimitação territorial para confinar o tema à área geográfica prevista no plano de tese de Doutoramento, bem como por razões operacionais. De facto, a Grande Lisboa, ao constituir em termos de administração territorial estatística uma NUTSIII  formada por 8 concelhos (Amadora, Cascais, Lisboa, Loures, Mafra, Odivelas, Sintra e Vila Franca de Xira) numa área total de 1381 km2, agrega informação técnica e estatística suficiente para permitir um panorama diversificado e abrangente do tema .

A terceira e última parte resulta da análise do “Levantamento”, pelo que seleccionámos três empreendimentos para “Estudos de Caso”, aplicando-lhes uma análise espacio-funcional mais detalhada. Enquanto exemplos representativos da diversidade tipológica (arquitectónica e funcional) patente nas fichas da segunda parte, pretende-se demonstrar que a grelha de análise aplicada a estes três empreendimentos seria passível de utilização nos restantes.

The study covers the urban and housing development trajectory in Nonthaburi Province, a part of Bangkok Metropolitan Extended Region. The sub-urbanized region has been drastically changed in land values. The comprehensive housing development plan would help foresee changing trend to cope with the coming difficulties which will obstruct the sustainable housing development.

The advent of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) provides opportunities for people living with a disability to make more informed choices about how they live their life, with their family members and friends treated as full partners. The advocated people-centred approaches are intended to allow people living with a disability quality of life, community presence, participation and social inclusion. There is a high prevalence of disability in the Indigenous population. While the Australian Bureau of Statistics reports that 50% of the Indigenous population live with a disability, the Australian Government Productivity Commission and other bodies estimate that the rate of disability is much higher due to underreporting. The level of need for assistance among Indigenous Australians, in 2009, was more than twice that among non-Indigenous Australians and members of the Indigenous community living with a disability are at least twice as likely to need help with a core activity ...

The essay outlines the development of the third-largest prefabricated housing estate on the territory of eastern Germany, the Fritz Heckert area in Chemnitz. In particular, the exodus in the 1990s, the local political hegemony and the recent development into a reserve housing area are addressed. The essay was published in the exhibition catalogue of the art festival Begehungen 2020 on the topic "Entwürfnisse: Ring 8". The text was translated into english by Eric-John Russell.

This report is about the ethics and transparency of corporate political organising. Its case study is Airbnb, one of the biggest companies in the ‘platform’ economy, who resources, mobilises and coordinates its landlords as political advocates to lobby for its preferred forms of regulation. Since 2008, numbers of short-term lettings, many of which might otherwise house permanent residents, have expanded dramatically. The associated problems, around housing shortages, tourism, taxation and urban conviviality, have led to social movement opposition and local attempts to regulate.

Airbnb’s use of grassroots lobbying, where businesses influence democratic institutions by creating and coordinating apparently independent social movements to act on their behalf, has been key in their response. Airbnb presents carefully curated and intensively coordinated groups of landlords with a single room or property as ‘people power’: independent grassroots groups who share its policy preferences. This offers the company legitimacy and additional political influence to protect a business model that is increasingly dominated by professional accommodation providers.

This paper analyses strengths and weaknesses of Ligurian mountain villages in the Alpine Convention perimeter. First, it outlines its cultural, geographical and socioeconomic context, and specifically the characteristics of mountain villages in the Ligurian Alps compared to
those on the coast and in other mountain areas within the same region. This paper analyses the institutional interventions implemented by the regional authorities for the recovery of mountain settlements. The hypothesis is that these interventions, which address only the agricultural dimension, are insufficient to reach this objective. It also describes some of the most well-known recovery interventions of the past years, which have taken place spontaneously without a clear institutional planning, and it demonstrates how these best practices may also hide some pitfalls.

The term air quality means the state of the air around us. Good air quality refers to clean, clear, unpolluted air. Clean air is essential to maintain delicate balance of life. Poor air quality occurs when pollutants reach high enough concentrations to endanger human health and environment. Pollutant can be indoor and outdoor. Fire safety refers to precautions that are taken to prevent or reduce the likelihood of a fire that may result in death, injury, or property damage, alert those in structure to the presence of an uncontrolled fire in the event
one occurs, better enable those threatened by fire to survive in an evacuate from affected areas, or to reduce the damage caused by fire.

In the past decade, urban regeneration policy makers and practitioners have faced a number of difficult challenges, such as sustainability, budgetary constraints, demands for community involvement and rapid urbanization in the Global South. Urban regeneration remains a high profile and important field of government-led intervention, and policy and practice continue to adapt to the fresh challenges and opportunities of the twenty-first century, as well as confronting long-standing intractable urban problems and dilemmas. This Companion provides cutting-edge critical review and synthesis of recent conceptual, policy and practical developments within the field. With contributions from 72 international experts within the field, it explores the meaning of ‘urban regeneration’ in differing national contexts, asking questions and providing informed discussion and analyses to illuminate how an apparently disparate field of research, policy and practice can be rendered coherent, drawing out common themes and significant differences. The Companion is divided into six parts, exploring: globalization and neo-liberal perspectives on urban regeneration; emerging econceptualizations of regeneration; public infrastructure and public space;
housing and cosmopolitan communities; community centred regeneration; and culture-led regeneration. The concluding chapter considers the future of urban regeneration and proposes a nine-point research agenda. This Companion assembles a diversity of approaches and insights in one comprehensive volume to provide a state-of-the-art review of the field. It is a valuable resource for both advanced undergraduate
and postgraduate students in Urban Planning, Built Environment, Urban Studies and Urban Regeneration, as well as academics, practitioners and politicians.

Fuori casa. Antropologia degli sfratti a Milano […] offre un importante contributo antropologico all’analisi critica della complessa interazione tra forme di esclusione sociale, logiche del profitto urbano e politiche abitative. Esplora la centralità dei margini a partire dal fenomeno degli sfratti e della sua articolazione nella città di Milano secondo due traiettorie principali. Da un lato interpreta quel vasto apparato sociale, politico ed economico che produce profitto dalle periferie e dai margini urbani, dotandoli di un’ambigua e inattesa centralità politica ed economica. Dall’altro promuove una riflessione antropologica che si concentra sulle nuove forme di cittadinanza all’interno di più ampi processi di costruzione della marginalità urbana. Entrambe le declinazioni si basa- no sulla produzione sociale e antropopoietica di una specifica categoria di soggetti: i senza casa. In questo senso, il testo si focalizza sul tentativo di rendere problematica la costruzione di questa forma di umanità (dalla Prefazione di Roberto Malighetti)

This paper considers housing in Nigeria as a tool for national development. It begins by examining the importance of housing in the attainment of sustainable development. It then goes on to look at the various housing strategies programmes and policies that have emerged in Nigeria. The paper describes housing problems in Nigeria, housing as a policy, as well as the national housing policy. Furthermore, it gives a review of housing policies and programmes in Nigeria. The identified problems that are associated with the implementation of housing policies in Nigeria are poor administration, inadequate funding, insufficient infrastructural amenities, as well as inadequate housing finance. The paper recommends the periodic review of the housing policy, housing finance, encouragement of the use of local materials, as well as the provision of low cost houses in urban and rural places.