The Effect of Informal Settlement Upgrading on Women’s Social Networks: Layout Versus Location

Informal settlements are prevalent in the South African urban landscape. Part of the attempt by the government to meet housing and infrastructure needs has been the in situ upgrading of these informal settlements. This paper explores the effect of in situ informal settlement upgrading on women’s social networks. Social networks are important as they allow access to various livelihood assets that are crucial for building sustainable livelihoods and resilient communities. The results of the research undertaken indicate that the newly upgraded informal settlements have not been conducive to the preservation or creation of women’s social networks due to poor layout planning and inadequate infrastructure provision. There is an assumption that if the informal settlements are upgraded in situ, social networks will not be disrupted. It is anticipated that, because the residents are in the same geographical area, they will be able to maintain their social networks. The paper makes the argument that, when it comes to sustaining social networks, settlement layout and infrastructure provision are just as important and geographical location.     

Hoping for more: redeveloping U.S. public housing without marginalizing low-income residents?

Urban restructuring policies have uprooted residents and dismantled communities. Previous studies focus on housing redevelopment that minimizes the fraction of housing units left for poor residents and on interviewing residents only once the redevelopment has been announced. By contrast, this paper examines how residents over time experienced the HOPE VI redevelopment of the Orchard Park public housing project in Boston, which sought to preserve a low-income community. Using official records and a unique set of interviews with residents before and after redevelopment, we find marked declines in crime and increased residential satisfaction, which are attributed to changes in tenant composition. The redevelopment process reduced the total number of public housing units yet maintained the vast majority of housing for poor families while creating a new social mix. The findings suggest that to more fully capture the impacts of restructuring, existing theory must be expanded to consider who is displaced and how poverty is deconcentrated.     

Stability,advocacy and voice: opportunities and challenges in resident-led preservation of affordable housing

Abstract

The role of safe, stable affordable housing has been found to play an outsized role in the ability of residents to access opportunity. However, low-income and moderate-income households face disproportionate impacts of changes in urban neighbourhoods, including poor conditions, evictions and rising rents that threaten that stability. Over the past decade, the deep subsidies that created or redeveloped affordable housing between the late 1960s and 1980s have expired, putting not only the residents of those buildings. Meanwhile, market-affordable housing is at risk due to increasing market pressure in appreciating neighbourhoods. In Washington, DC a combination of programmes, laws and traditions have created a tenant-led preservation policy that has preserved the affordability of tens of thousands of units since the early 1980s. This paper investigates DC’s tenant-based preservation policy to understand the preservation challenges and opportunities for low-income and moderate-income residents in changing communities.     

广州金沙洲城市保障房社区研究——“日常生活实践”的视角

住房问题已经成为中国城市所面临的主要问题。进入新世纪,保障性住房建设大规模展开,保障房社区作为一种独特的新社会空间,受到广泛关注。基于米歇尔·德塞都的日常生活实践理论,本文对广州金沙洲新社区展开实证研究,探讨当前中国城市保障房社区居民的日常生活机制。研究主要采用典型案例、实地观察、半结构式访谈、深度访谈相结合的综合研究方法,从“日常生活实践”的角度探讨地方政府、市场和保障房社区居民的“结构化”互动,梳理和解析居民日常行为规律。研究表明,保障房作为地方政府为推进劳动力再生产而实施的一种空间战略,目的在于解决“集体消费”下的城市问题。在此背景下,保障房社区居民面临着社会、经济和文化上的“边缘化”及“空间锁定”问题。作为应对,社区居民采取各种生活“战术”予以应对：生活回市区、巧妙改造、隐性就业、维护社交网络、积极生活等。本文以此为保障房研究提供新视角,并为相关政策的制定和实施提供参考和借鉴。     

Dealing with living in poor neighbourhoods

In this prologue to the special issue, the guest editors place the contributions in the context of current debates on living in concentrated poverty neighbourhoods. These debates concern two broad categories of residents: poor households that are assisted to move from concentrations of poverty to lower-poverty areas (movers); and households (not exclusively the poor) that cannot move out of poor neighbourhoods or are not willing to do so, for various reasons (stayers). For the first category, the main issue is whether housing vouchers provide movers only with better housing or also with other social, psychological and economic benefits. A wealth of (partly contradictory) evidence justifies exploring a fundamental question: What should housing vouchers do? With regard to those unwilling or unable to move out of poor neighbourhoods, we focus on how residents cope with the recurrent problems and stressful circumstances in poor neighbourhoods. Here, four interrelated concepts are central to our discussion: place attachment, coping tactics, territoriality, and social network formation. Our discussion paves the way for the subsequent five papers, each dealing with one of the selected topics. The aim of this special issue is to provide new evidence that underpins or questions the current debates on living in or leaving neighbourhoods with concentrated poverty. The research reported here was done in the United States, Great Britain and the Netherlands.     

Build as you earn and learn: informal urbanism and incremental housing financing in Kumasi,Ghana

The continuous evolution, proliferation and resilience of informal housing in cities of developing countries defy all attempts by their formal planning processes to marginalise and relegate them to the periphery. In most instances, their rapid and uncontrolled growth has overwhelmed city planning authorities. More importantly, strategies for financing these informal housing units present complex networks of sources not clearly discussed in the housing literature. Using two informal communities—Ayigya-Zongo and Dakodwom—in Kumasi, Ghana, this paper explores the nature and characteristics of these non-conventional housing financing strategies. The study reveals an evolving and enduring non-conventional informal housing financing system effective for providing convenient and affordable housing for the urban poor; but this system is continuously sidelined by the conventional urban planning and housing financing systems. We argue against these attitudes of formal institutions towards these non-conventional housing financing strategies, and submit that these strategies are the gradual, incremental, and collective responses of residents in informal communities to a hostile formal urban planning and housing environment. Hence the dynamics of these non-conventional housing financing schemes point to a complex and fluid network of informal housing financial sources and structures, which are co-evolving with the processes of informal urbanisation and social learning among residents in informal settlements.     

Different Values,Different Housing? Can Underlying Value Orientations Predict Residential Preference and Choice?

Various demographic, socio-economic and socio-cultural shifts have taken place in recent decades. These trends result in a change in the volume and quality of the housing demand as well as in the choice of location. Consequently, the traditional method, which implies asking relatively simple and straightforward questions about the willingness to move, residential preferences and the current housing situation, might no longer be adequate to explain and predict residential preference and choice. Therefore, a search is going on for new methods. The current paper explores the use of underlying value orientations. Respondents were divided into two groups according to whether they attached more importance to “Self-direction” or to “Security” as a guiding principle in housing. A number of differences were observed. Respondents who find Self-direction important more often live in the city centre and prefer an existing dwelling with an innovative design in a neighbourhood with various types of residents and a mix of residential and commercial land uses. Residents who attach more importance to Security more often live outside the city centre and prefer a newly built dwelling with a traditional design in a neighbourhood with mainly housing and the same type of residents. The results provide some indication that residents may indeed prefer particular dwelling or neighbourhood characteristics because they pursue values and goals that are important to them.     

Job mobility, residential mobility and commuting: A theoretical analysis using search theory

The decision to move job and the decision to move residence are closely related dynamic discrete choices, as both moves involve a change of commuting distance. This suggests that labour and residential mobility are mutually dependent and should be simultaneously analysed, based on a theory which incorporates these dynamic decisions explicitly. In the present paper, we base our analysis on search theory and choose the point of departure that individuals maximise utility by moving through different labour market and housing market states, while taking into consideration that moving from one state to another is costly. Based on these assumptions, a search model is constructed and the optimality conditions are derived.  One of main conclusions based on the search model is that the effect of factors which cause housing market imperfections (viz. the residential moving costs and the residence arrival rate) have ambiguous effects on he job acceptance and job search behaviour of employed individuals. For some interesting cases however, the effect of the residential moving costs on the job acceptance behaviour can be derived. In contrast, the effect of housing market imperfections on the labour market behaviour of nonemployed persons is determined. We find for example that housing policies which discourage nonemployed persons to move residence (e.g. housing subsidies) also decrease the probability of becoming employed and may therefore unintentionally increase the number of nonemployed persons. Received: December 1997/Accepted: March 1999     

Romancing the high-rise in Singapore

Since the 1960s, Singapore has continually built high-rise buildings to house its growing population. While many other developing cities are faced with a housing shortage, the greater proportion of the Singapore resident population is living in and owning accommodation in high-rise buildings. Drawing on interviews conducted with public housing families in their homes, this paper seeks to discuss and provide a perspective of the Singapore residents’ attitude to high-rise living. Although the discussion is focused on the Singapore resident perspective, high-rise living experience is not unique to Singapore. If international building and urbanization trends are any indication, more and more urban residents will have the opportunity to live in high-rise housing. A widening number of cities, including London, are building 50-story housing as the latest answer to their country’s housing shortages. Given the extensive high-rise living in Singapore, the findings of this paper stand to offer important implications to cities considering high-rise housing.     

Accessibility of Services and Facilities for Residents in Public Housing in Urban Areas of Ogun State, Nigeria

Against the backdrop of the need to improve accessibility of services and infrastructural facilities for urban residents in Nigeria, this study examined the accessibility of services and facilities for urban residents in newly constructed public housing in Ogun State, Southwest Nigeria. The study was based on household surveys and data were collected from 452 respondents in nine public housing estates constructed between 2003 and 2010 in urban centers in the study area using structured questionnaire and observation schedule. It was observed that although the majority of households in the housing estates have good access to human waste disposal system, accessibility to refuse bins, treated water, electricity, and public transport services as well as educational, shopping, recreational, healthcare, drainage, and other vital facilities is poor. One instructive finding of this study is that more emphasis is given to the production of dwelling units than accessibility to basic services and facilities for residents in public housing schemes in the study area. The paper suggests that to improve the quality of public housing and living standard of residents, policy action is required to compel public housing developers to provide basic services and facilities in housing schemes in Nigerian cities.     

Preservation from the bottom-up: affordable housing,redevelopment, and negotiation in Washington,DC

Previous iterations of large-scale redevelopment were been marked by displacement of the residents whose homes stood in the way of perceived progress. Now these neighborhoods face a new kind of urban renewal. A city with significant vacancy and city government ownership, Washington, DC, is in the process of rapid infill redevelopment. As property values surrounding city-backed developments that were once affordable increase, residents struggle to afford housing. DC has developed significant tools for the preservation of affordable housing, including an existing stock of subsidized housing, legal and financial resources, and a network of organizers and advocates that have given many residents in changing neighborhoods the opportunity to remain. This paper uses the example of Columbia Heights neighborhood of Washington, DC to examine potential strategies to preserve affordable housing in rapidly changing housing markets.     

Social Networks in Public and Community Housing: The Impact on Employment Outcomes

This article seeks to examine some of the ways in which social networks may contribute to employment outcomes for community and public housing tenants. There is a body of literature that explores the relationship between social networks and employment outcomes, and a separate literature on the relationship between housing and social networks (which is largely concerned with homeowners). However, there has been little research that links all three aspects, especially in relation to social housing. This provides a starting point for this research, which involved interviews with housing organisation staff and focus groups with tenants in two case study areas in metropolitan Adelaide, South Australia. This article reports on the findings through examining the way in which housing tenure may affect social network formation, and considering the ways that these networks can impact on job attainment. It is concluded that, overall, those in community housing appeared to fare better, in terms of employment-conducive networks, than those in public housing. This finding is related not just to the management of the housing, but also to the broader issues of stigma, area-level deprivation and intergenerational unemployment.     

Who speaks for the poor?

There is in Australia a chronic shortage of decent housing affordable to the income poor. This shortage is exacerbated by increasingly vociferous opposition from groups of residents to proposals for low‐income housing development. The move towards a more inclusionary form of planning in the 1990s, based on an expansion of public participation strategies, often leaves planners torn between satisfying the demands of the vociferous few and a professional desire for ‘balanced’ development which considers a broader, if nebulous, ‘public good’. In urban consolidation debates, far more is heard from articulate middle class NIMBYs who fear that provision of ‘affordable’ housing will allow people of different (i.e. inferior) backgrounds to move into their areas, than from the lower‐income groups who want to realize their assets through subdivision of their property or who simply want the opportunity to afford somewhere to live. However inclusionary the planning process seeks to be, the articulate classes will become more actively and vociferously involved than others in attempting to shape discussion and outcomes. Is anyone able to speak for the poor or ensure their voices are heard?     

Housing quality and resilience in New Zealand

There is extensive research on the negative health impacts of poor housing quality. However, little is known about the potential health benefits of high-quality housing in poor neighbourhoods. Neighbourhoods with unexpectedly good health outcomes despite high levels of deprivation have been deemed resilient places and housing quality in these areas may be a contributor to this resilience. This study aimed to evaluate whether an indicator of neighbourhood housing quality was associated with a previously quantified resilience index (RINZ) in New Zealand. It was found that areas with high housing quality tended to have higher median income, greater proportions of partnered people and shorter-term residents, and very low proportions of Māori. A positive association was found between housing quality and resilience, after adjustment for deprivation. There was no indication of differences by heterogeneity in housing quality within the aggregate unit of analysis. These findings pose the hypothesis that improving housing quality in similarly deprived areas that have poor health outcomes could potentially boost health. To extend this understanding, further development of a more sophisticated housing quality indicator is recommended.     

做好住宅规划的分析与思考

针对住房市场过热,中央强调安居是社会和谐的基本要求。上海启动1000万m2市政动迁房和1000万m2中低收入层住房开发及相关技术经济措施。规划上,按国际经验分析发展形势、机遇、挑战,房价与居民收入动态平衡,求得规划期末居民可承受的每户住房规模(小型化或组合)资金、开发总量、布局,并引入城市设计,改善住区环境质量。     

Los Angeles housing models and neighbourhoods’ role in supportive housing residents’ social integration

Social integration is an indicator of programmatic success in supportive housing, yet is an ongoing challenge for residents. This study examines varying supportive housing models’ (i.e. congregate, single-site, scatter-site) and neighborhoods’ (i.e. Skid Row, Downtown Los Angeles [DTLA], Other) differential impact on social integration outcomes- measured by residents’ social networks (i.e. size, diversity, social support). Participants were formerly homeless English or Spanish speaking unaccompanied adults (N=405), aged 39 years or older, living in supportive housing for 3 months. Housing model and neighborhood were examined separately with social network measures in controlled multivariable linear regression models. Compared to Skid Row residents, DTLA residents reported less emotional support and less tangible support, while residents in Other neighborhoods reported less emotional support and less instrumental support. Findings suggest overall differing housing models may be less influential in social integration, while neighborhoods may facilitate social support.     

Parisian eco-districts: low energy and affordable housing?

This paper examines how policies and practices for affordable housing in Paris, especially ‘green’ housing for the poor, are being subverted to retain or attract the middle class: the ‘greentrification’ of lower-class neighbourhoods. From the 1960s onward, many middle- and working-class households have left Paris due to de-industrialization and the city’s high housing costs. To bring these middle classes back, the municipality initiated a policy calling for increased social diversity, using social housing as its main policy tool. In France the provision of public housing is legally mandated, and compared with international standards, the income ceilings for gaining access to it are high. Thus, municipalities may pursue urban renovation and construct social housing for the middle class to replace substandard buildings occupied by low-income populations. The Paris municipality has established ‘green’ residential eco-districts known as ‘eco-quartiers’. In the national eco-district programme, the neighbourhoods must meet environmental performance criteria, show potential for economic development, and provide social and functional diversity. Thus, housing location and price must fit the needs of the existing residents. However, most ‘green’ subsidized housing in Paris is for the middle class. Social diversity has become a means of redistribution: more middle class and fewer poor people.     

Lessons for LEED® for Neighborhood Development,Social Equity,and Affordable Housing

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design® for Neighborhood Development (LEED®ND) is a rating system designed to encourage sustainable development. I explore why and how most LEED®ND projects ultimately fail to meet the equity goals inherent in sustainability. I survey 114 LEED®ND accredited professionals (APs) and conduct 20 interviews with LEED®ND APs to illuminate the role of the rating system in developer decisions to include affordable housing in their projects. I also explore why nonprofit developers see value in seeking LEED®ND certification for their projects. Although a limited sample, it provides insights into how the certification process affects developer decisions. I find that the LEED®ND rating system does a poor job of encouraging developers to provide affordable housing: Only 40% of LEED®ND-certified projects include affordable housing. LEED®ND APs do not feel that the system offers sufficient incentives to overcome the risks and costs of providing affordable housing. Nonprofit developers might pursue LEED®ND to create savings for residents, but may be deterred by the cost of certification. Most respondents feel that the affordable housing credit should be increased and improved to provide adequate incentives to developers.

Takeaway for practice: Planners cannot count on LEED®ND certification to ensure the provision of affordable and mixed housing in sustainable neighborhoods. The LEED®ND system could be improved by weighting the affordable housing credit more heavily; developers could also be incentivized to build a greater mix of housing. The certification costs could be lowered or subsidized for projects with affordable housing and assessed on a per unit basis. Additional credits could be given to projects that significantly reduce utility costs for low-income residents.     

Zoning and the Nouveau Poor

The nouveau poor, women heading households, who have experienced a dramatic shift from middle income to low income status due to divorce, widowhood, or abandonment, and who own their own homes in America's suburban and small towns constitute a demographic group whose housing opportunities are limited by certain restrictive zoning practices.

Outmoded regulations, such as those with restrictive definitions of family and age-restrictive zoning regulations and covenants, deny these families the opportunity to enter into housesharing arrangements or to divide their homes into principal and accessory units. Because of these policies, nouveau poor families may find that they cannot continue to live in the communities that they had sought out as ideal places for raising their children. Although restrictive zoning regulations have generally been upheld by the courts, they have at times been successfully attacked. An understanding of the court decisions and their public policy implications will provide guidance for land use officials so they can respond to the housing needs of the nouveau poor.     

Opportunity or Loss? Health Impacts of Estate Renewal and the Relocation of Public Housing Residents

Estate renewal programs can have positive and negative impacts on the health and wellbeing of public housing residents. We aimed to investigate the potential health impacts of relocating residents as part of the redevelopment of a public housing estate in South Western Sydney, New South Wales. In-depth interviews were undertaken with public housing residents as well as with informants from local health and housing authorities. We found that a range of current and potential health impacts were linked to individual residents’ responses to the processes of estate redevelopment and relocation, housing and neighbourhood quality, residents’ social networks and access to social and health care services. Improved housing quality and maintenance, a personalised approach to relocation and equitable access to services were identified to contribute to positive health outcomes.