Housing during recession: Illustrations from Latin America

Latin America's cities grew rapidly after 1940 during a period of continuous economic growth. Booming populations were accommodated by a massive increase in the housing stock. Most of the increase in the low‐income housing stock came from ‘self‐help’ construction. Much of the consequent housing was gradually improved and serviced; levels of owner occupation increased.

Since 1980, of course, economic and social conditions in most Latin American countries have deteriorated. The debt crisis, consequent inflation, and governmental responses to those twin problems have led to a sharp deterioration in living standards for poor and middle class alike. This prompts the question: what has happened to the housing stock and how has self‐help construction reacted to conditions of economic recession?

The paper analyses recent changes in the Latin American housing situation with illustrations from Mexico and Venezuela. It examines state policy in the two countries and asks whether self‐help housing constitutes ‘an architecture that works’ even under conditions of extreme economic recession.     

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 struggle for housing provision in Tanzania: A case of confusing policies

This paper uses secondary sources to examine ambiguities inherent in the socio‐economic and political policies which guide national development plans in Tanzania. These ambiguities have negative impacts on overall development strategies including housing.

The main focus of the paper is on post‐independence socio‐economic policies. These have been divided into three distinct periods, that is, pre‐Amsha, Arusha and post‐Arusha Declaration periods. Policies that were enforced in each period are carefully examined and their direct or indirect impact on national development plans evaluated in terms of housing production. Finally, the paper proposes drastic changes within the government machinery if future development policies are to be more successful.     

Race and the allocation of public housing: Changing perspectives,recurrent themes

Housing on Trial. By Elizabeth Burney. Oxford University Press (for Institute of Race Relations). 1967.

What Price Equality? Deborah Phillips, Greater London Council 1986.

Race, Class and the Allocation of State Housing. By Jeff Henderson and Valerie Kam. Aldershot: Gower. 1987.

Race and Housing: New Perspectives. edited by Susan Smith and John Mercer, University of Glasgow, Centre for Housing Research. 1987.     

Defining housing reality: Ideological hegemony and power in housing research

An understanding of the dynamics of the research process and an awareness of the power structure of research can contribute towards heightened awareness of researchers in developing new ways of thinking and breaking down hegemonic perspectives. The task of this discussion is to begin a process of internal dialogue among housing researchers based on moving towards a more explicated awareness of the implicit paradigms and opaque power structures which determine what become and what do not become accepted wisdoms.

When a constructivist perspective taken from the sociology of science is applied to housing studies it is argued that dominant paradigms can be discerned. These can be understood in relation to the organisation of housing research both institutionally and in disciplinary terms, while sustenance of existing paradigms, or the development of new ones, are achieved through pervasive interpersonal micro processes.     

Book reviews

Homelessness and the London Housing Market. Glen Bramley, Kevin Doogan, Philip Leather, Alan Murie and Evelyn Watson. Bristol: School for Advanced Urban Studies. 1988. pp163. £6.95 paper.

Housing Policy and Central‐Local Government Relations. Barrie Houlihan. Basingstoke: Avebury. 1988. ppxi + 229. £29.50 Cloth.     

Towards the comparative exploration of public housing segregation in England and the United States

This paper is an exploration of the treatment of racial minorities by public sector housing agencies in Britain and the United States over the last several decades, with the objective of describing empirical and policy differences and similarities. Public housing programmes in each country have been, at differing points in time, important cornerstone's of the welfare state but each has become a residualised sector of the housing delivery system. In the context of such residualisation, the key issue to consider is whether British council housing is likely to reproduce the patterns of racial segregation, impoverishment, and discrimination which are endemic in the American public housing system.

A variety of administrative agency reports and data, court cases, as well as case studies of race and public housing policies in the US and England have been used in this paper (Smith and Whalley, 1975; Commission for Racial Equality seriatim; Hirsch, 1983; Bauman, 1987; Department of the Environment; Smith, 1989). Unpublished tables for the English Housing Trailer for the 1988 Labour Force Survey were provided by the Department of the Environment.

Despite the presence of such information, there are a number of resource and data gathering concerns that affect the understanding of the interrelationships between race, class, and public housing policy on a comparative basis including: constrained research resources; unreliable data collection procedures; unavailability of time series data; and chronically limited research on civil rights/organisational effectiveness (Liebert, 1981). Despite these shortcomings, there are a significant number of both academic and applied studies in the area which suggest basic themes, issues and hypotheses for future examination.     

Book reviews

Implementing Housing Policy. Peter Malpass and Robin Means (eds) Buckingham: Open University Press, 1993, pp 194, £12.99.

Housing Policy in the 1990s. Johnston Birchall (ed) London: Routledge, 1992, pp 193, £12.99.

Housing Policy and Action. Peter Malpass, Matthew Warburton, Glen Bramley and Gavin Smart (eds) Bristol: SAUS, 1993, pp 115, £9.75.

Built to Last? Reflections on British Housing Policy. Carol Grant (ed). London: Roof, 1992, pp 177 £7.95 (paperback)

Dislodging the Welfare State? Housing and Privatization in Four European Nations. Lennart J. Lundqvist, Delft: Delft University Press. 1992. 144 pp.

The Crisis of London. A. Thornley (ed) London: Routledge, 1992. pp 213. £40 (hardback), £9.99 (paperback).

Hovels to High Rise. State Housing in Europe Since 1850. Anne Power. London and New York: Routledge, 1993. pp 434, £45.00 (hardback), £15.99 (paperback)

Government and Housing. W. van Vliet and J. van Weesep (eds).

Developments in Seven Countries. (1990). Volume 36, Urban Affairs Annual Reviews. Sage Publications, 1990. pp. 293 16.95

Housing Strategies in Europe, 1880–1930, C. Pooley (ed). Leicester University Press, 1992, £49.95

Housing Finance in the UK: An Introduction. Kenneth Gibb and Moira Munro, London: Macmillan Education Ltd, 1991. pp 266. £11.99 (paperback).     

A new publication from the landscape research group

Charles Bridgeman and the English Landscape Garden

by Peter Willis 1977

£50 Studies in Architecture XVII A Zwemmer Ltd

Alexander Pope and the Arts of Georgian England by Morris R Brownell 1978

£16 Oxford University Press

A WORLD WITH A VIEW ‐

An Inquiry into the Nature of Scenic Values

pp 196 (illus.) $15.00

MAPPING MOORLAND CHANGE ‐

A framework for land use decisions in the Peak District.

M. L. Parry: Peak District National Park. 1977     

Housing policy in the emergent socialist mixed economy of Eastern Europe

The late 1980s signal a qualitatively new stage in the development of socialist economies. Earlier reforms attempted to move away from a monolithic, centrally planned system, to find more effective mechanisms of economic management, in particular to reduce the role of planning and increase the role of the market within the statist economy. But during the last two or three years a significant change has occurred in the reform discourse. The debate over ‘how much plan and how much market’ has come to be replaced by a call for a reform of ownership (Bauer, 1988). A ‘socialist mixed economy’, with a statist sector complemented by a private sector seems to be in the making.

This paper has two aims.

In the first part I present the trend towards a socialist mixed economy. I will explain the forces pointing in this direction, the likely functioning of a socialist mixed economy, and finally, how different a socialist mixed economy might be from a capitalist one.

In the second part I look at the housing economy, and explore how housing policy may change as the national economy becomes increasingly mixed. Re‐privatisation of housing preceded re‐privatisation or deregulation in other sectors. From the late 1960s onwards the state began to withdraw from housing construction in many countries (Ciechocinska, 1988; Daniel and Temesi, 1984; Tosics, 1987). By the late 1980s a significant proportion of new housing was built which was the individual property of the occupants. Is the housing system therefore already a mixed economy? In my view, the answer to this question is no. The main purpose of the second section of my paper is to show that this ‘re‐privatisation’ or ‘marketisation’ of the housing economy has been highly restricted. As far as the system of production is concerned there has been no private (profit orientated) sector in the housing economy; market‐like forces only regulated the distribution of housing. The task of this paper is to show that the transformation of the national economy into a socialist mixed economy is therefore likely to have far‐reaching consequences for the housing system. I will also try to show, in some detail, what these consequences are likely to be.     

Low income home ownership and housing policy

Public Housing and Private Property 1970–1984. by Stephanie Cooper. Aldershot: Gower. 1985. pp. 178. £18.50.

Low Cost Home Ownership. edited by Philip Booth and Tony Crook. Aldershot: Gower. 1985. pp. 264. £18.50.

Home Ownership in the Inner City: Salvation or Despair? by Valerie Karn, Jim Kemeny and Peter Williams. Aldershot: Gower. 1985. pp. 162. £16.50.     

Shared ownership: The socialisation or privatisation of housing?

Shared ownership schemes are being introduced in Australia at a time when there has been a considerable shift in community attitudes towards the role of the public sector. This shift has brought both a push for privatisation and a push for improved targeting of public expenditure.

The emergence of support for shared ownership can be interpreted, in turn, as a desire to prop up home ownership; a means of reducing public expenditure on housing and/or an attempt to improve the targeting of support provided by public housing. Shared ownership has been heralded as the new way of providing social housing by its protagonists and decried as a means of diverting scarce resources from more pressing needs by its critics. Which of these is paramount depends on the way in which shared ownership schemes are implemented.

This paper outlines a basic framework within which an unsubsidised shared ownership scheme can work and indicates how a subsidised approach can be introduced without threatening funds provided for public housing.     

Book notes

The Ecology of a Garden Jennifer Owen, 1991, Cambridge University Press, 403pp, ISBN 0‐521‐34335‐6, £65.00

Technopoles of the World: The Making of Twenty‐First Century Industrial Complexes Manuel Castells and Peter Hall, 1994, London, Routledge, ISBN 0‐415‐10015‐1

Facadism Jonathan Richards, 1994, London, Routledge, 167pp, ISBN 0‐415‐08316‐8

Human Culture in Landscape edited by Hana Svobodova and Jan Uhde, 1993,Wageningen, Pudoc Scientific Publishers, ISBN 90‐220‐1089‐9, Dfl 84.00, $ 56.00     

The State of the Nation's Ecosystems: Measuring the lands,waters and living resources of the United States

Landscape Transformed

London, Academy Editions, 1996, 112 pp., no price given, ISBN 1–85490–452–3

Sculpting with the Environment: a natural dialogue

Baile Oakes (Ed.)

New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1995, ISBN 0–442–01642–5, 252 pp., £45.00, hb.

After the Ruins: restoring the countryside of Northern France after the Great War

Hugh Clout

Exeter, University of Exeter Press, 1996, ISBN 0–85989–491–6,332 pp., £35.

Environmental Aesthetics: ideas, politics and planning

J. Douglas Porteous

London and New York, Routledge, 1996, ISBN 0–415–13769–1, 20 pp., £15.99.

Countryside Survey 1990 Main Report

C.J. Barr, R.G.H. Bunce, R.T. Clarke, R.M. Fuller, M.T. Furse, M.K. Gillespie, G.B. Groom, C.J. Hallam, M. Hornung, D.C. Howard &; M.J. Ness

London, Department of the Environment, 1993, 174 pp., £12.00 (available from DoE Publications Sales Unit, Block 3, Spur 2, Government Buildings, Lime Grove, Eastcote, HA4 8SE)

World of Environmental Design, Volume 1: Urban Spaces I (Streets and Squares)

Francisco Asenio Cerver

Barcelona, Arco Editorial, 1995, 255 pp., US$75 (per volume) ISBN 84–8185–004–7 (complete work), ISBN 84–8185–005–5 (Volume 1)

’The Remains of Distant Times’: archaeology and the National Trust

David Morgan Evans, Peter Salway &; David Thackray (Eds)

Woodbridge, Suffolk, The Boydell Press, 1996, ISBN 0–85115–671–1, hb, 235 pp., £29.50

Apostle of Taste: Andrew Jackson Downing 1815–1852

D. Schuyler

Baltimore, fohns Hopkins University Press, 1996, ISBN 0–8018–5229–3, $35.95     

Book reviews

Edge of Empire: Postcolonialism and the City. Jane M. Jacobs. London and New York, Routledge, 1996, 193 pp., £12.99 pb, ISBN 0–415–12007–1

Land for Industrial Development. David Adams, Lynne Russell & Clare Taylor‐Russell. London, E.&F.N. Spon, 1994, 289 pp., £37.50 hb, ISBN 0–419–19180–1

Urban Policy in Practice. Tim Blackman. London, Routledge, 1994, 320 pp., £14.99 pb, ISBN 0–415–09300–7

Planning, the Market and Private House‐building. G. Bramley, W. Bartlett & C. Lambert London, UCL Press, 1995, 192 pp., £11.95 pb, ISBN 1–85728–163–2

Retail Planning Policies in Western Europe. Ross Davies. London, Routledge, 1995, 304 pp., £45.00 hb, ISBN 0–415–10997–3

Transport Concepts in European Cities. Tim Pharoah & Dieter Apel. Aldershot, Avebury, 1995, 291 pp., £42.50 hb, ISBN 1–859–72094–3

Building a New Heritage: Tourism, Culture and Identity in the New Europe. G.J. Ashworth & P.J. Larkham (Eds). London, Routledge, 1994, 278 pp., hb (out of print), ISBN 0–415–07931–4

Fractal Cities: A Geometry of Form and Function. Michael Batty & Paul Longley. London, Academic Press, 1994, 394 pp., £38.00 hb, ISBN 0–124–55570–5     

Book reviews

Cities, Housing and Profits: Flat Break‐up and the Decline of Private Renting. by Chris Hamnett and Bill Randolph. London: Hutchin‐son. 1988. 297pp. £25.00.

A Property‐Owning Democracy? by M. J. Daunton. London: Faber and Faber. 1987. 148pp. $6.95 (£3.95).

Loft Living: Culture & Capital in Urban Change. by Sharon Zukin. London: Radius. 1988. £8.95 (paperback).

Housing Association Law. by J. Alder and C. R. Handy. Sweet and Maxwell. 1987. 330pp. £26.00 (paperback).

The Design Professions and the Built Environment. edited by Paul L. Knox. London: Croom Helm 1988. 313pp. £35.00.

The Local State and Uneven Development. by Simon Duncan and Mark Goodwin. Cambridge: Polity Press (in association with Basil Blackwell). 1988. £8.95 (paperback).

Rehumanizing Housing. Necdet Teymur, Thomas A Markus and Tom Woolley (eds). London: Butterworths. 1988. pp196. £30.00.

Housing Policy and Tenures in Sweden. Lennort J. Lundquist. Gower 1988. pp173. FXX.

Housing in Postwar Canada: Demographic Change, Household Formation, and Housing Demand. John R Miron. Kingston and Montreal: McGill‐Queen's University Press. 1988. pp320. $35.00 (paperback).     

Book reviews

A Fourth Way? Privatization, Property and the Emergence of New Market Economies. Gregory S. Alexander & Grazyna Skapska (Eds). London, Routledge, 1994, xxiii + 336 pp., ISBN 0415906970 (HB), 0415906989 (PB)

From Public Housing to the Social Market. Rental Policy Strategies in Comparative Perspective. Jim Kemeny. London and New York, Routledge, 1995, 194 pp., £40.00

European Housing Finance. Single Market or Mosaic?. Will Bartlett & Glen Bramley (Eds). Oxford, The Alden Press, School for Advanced Urban Studies (SAUS) publication 12 (Bristol) 1994, 282 pp., £19.95, paperback, ISBN 1 873575 63 7

Housing, Financial Markets and the Wider Economy. David Miles. Chichester, John Wiley & Sons, 1994, 228 pp., £35.00

Women in the Housing Service. Marion Brion. London, Routledge, 1994, ISBN 0 415 08094 £45.00 Hardback

Slippery Customers: Estate Agents, The Public and Regulation. Michael Clarke, David Smith & Michael McConville. London, Blackstone Press, 1994, 295 pp., £19.95     

The Hallagerbakken housing project in Holmlia,Norway: when welfare became business

The late 1970s and early 1980s witnessed one of the most influential shifts within the organisational system of production for Norwegian mass housing. Although the increased availability of resources following the Second World War and the discovery of North Sea oil put the Norwegian government in a favourable position for investing in state-sponsored housing programmes, such investments did not happen. Instead, the strong public responsibility for affordable housing as a right of all citizens was weakened, and housing evolved into a commodity to be traded primarily on the free market.

Hallagerbakken, a housing project within the Holmlia satellite town—the last large housing development in the south of Oslo—has been influenced by several of the changes that occurred in the housing sector during this period. The resulting hybrid housing typology represented an innovation in the Norwegian setting, and, as a result, the project provides a starting point for re-evaluating some of the shifts towards a more market-oriented reality within architecture and the built environment.     

Review

LANDSCAPE PLANNING: an international journal on landscape ecology, reclamation and conservation, outdoor recreation and land‐use management (p122pp Illus.)

LAND SHAPE by Caroline Tisdall.

A review of The Land: Twentieth Century Landscape Photographs at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and The Land published by Gordon Fraser (hardcover £6.00 softcover £2,75).

Courtesy The Guardian (November 28th, 1975).