Housing Allowances: Emerging Answers

Katharine L. Bradbury and Anthony Downs (editors), Do Housing Allowances Work? (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1981), 419 pp; ISBN 0-8157-1052-6, $26.95. Judith D. Feins and Terry Saunders Lane, How Much for Housing? (Cambridge, Mass.: Abt Books, 1981), 208 pp; ISBN 0-89011-558-3, $19.00. Raymond J. Struyk and Marc Bendick, Jr. (editors), Housing Vouchers for the Poor; Lessons from a National Experiment (Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute Press, 1981), 424 pp; ISBN 87766-280-0, $25.00.     

Induced Cooperation in Housing Development: Comparing Housing Schemes in Four European Countries

In the development process of housing at a local level, several actors are involved. As a result, there is a need for coordination between the actors. The market can take care of this coordination. However, housing is generally considered to be, at least partly, the responsibility of the public sector. Leaving the development entirely to market forces is not an option for several reasons. But the other extreme, in which the public sector is entirely responsible for housing development is not considered a feasible option either. This paper investigates, using four case studies of housing development processes in different countries, what the role of the public sector, represented by the local planning authority, in such processes is, and how this can be put into effect. To that aim, the notion of 'induced cooperation' is introduced, as an approach for the local planning authority to pursue its housing and land use policy aims in an environment of mutual dependency.     

Metropolitan Housing Subsystems: A Comparative Review

Population, household, and housing data of twelve cities in industrialized countries are compared with respect to different rates of growth or decline in the inner and outer parts of the urban area. The study shows that in nearly all metropolitan areas the core declines in terms of population, but less in terms of households, and is stable or grows in terms of dwellings. This phenomenon can be characterized as a process of “spatial substitution” from core to periphery which is fast in terms of population, but slow in terms of dwellings because of the inherent inertia of the physical stock of the city. Following Batten (1985), a logistic substitution model is used to compare the speed and duration of spatial substitution in the urban areas studied. It is found that the process is similar in most urban areas, but that the cities have reached different points along its course. The conclusion is that the residential deconcentration observed in most urban areas in industrial countries is mainly a consequence of overall population growth or decline, decreasing household size, increasing per capita consumption of floor space, and lack of land in the core.     

Housing Market Dynamics Under Stochastic Growth: An Application to the Housing Market in Boulder, Colorado

Recent housing-market studies have modeled slow stock and price adjustment with some success. However, the empirical procedures used in these models break down if housing stocks or prices are driven by stochastic growth. In this paper I suggest an error-correction model for analyzing housing supply and demand under conditions of stochastic growth for a regional housing market. The model is applied to the housing market in Boulder, Colorado from 1981 through 1995—a period of rapid growth in housing values in the area. Long-run housing supply and demand are shown to be inelastic with respect to changes in the price of housing. The results indicate that developers respond more accurately to housing-market disequilibrium attributable to supply-side disturbances than to disturbances generated by changes in the demand for housing. On the other hand, price appreciation is driven primarily by demand disturbances.     

Housing Price Gradients: The Intersection of Space and Built Form

A hedonic housing price model, implemented for the Dallas region, reveals a housing market structured around multiple nodes, some of which give rise to positive and others to negative externalities. The utility/disutility derived from relative location is capitalized into the size and quality of the housing stock and the nature of neighborhood amenities. The result is a convergence of space and built form.     

Sexual Politics and Socialist Housing: Building Homes in Revolutionary Cuba

This article examines the interconnectedness of home and housing in oral history interviews with Cubans about their lives since the revolution of 1959. Historians and other scholars of the Cuban Revolution usually treat housing and home as separate issues. This article historicises the relationship between housing policy and the politics of home and family in revolutionary Cuba, drawing on feminist critiques of socialist housing policy as well as feminist and queer theorisations of sexuality and space. I conclude by making the case for comparative histories of sexuality and housing, arguing that an analysis of housing highlights intersections of class, race, gender and sexuality.     

Re-assessing the Post-War Housing Achievement: the Impact of War-damage Repairs on the New Housing Programme in London

This article contrasts the well-documented difficulties of thepost-war housing drive in 1945–48 with the little-knownachievements of the programme of war-damage repairs. Focusingon London in the first three critical post-war years, it showshow the drive for new housing was slowed by the resources requiredfor repairs, a policy justified because repairs provided morehouses with less labour than the new housing programme. Thearticle concludes by asking why the 110,000 previously unoccupiedhouses that were repaired cannot be part of a more positiveassessment of the housing achievements of the immediate post-waryears. ^* noab100{at}cam.ac.uk     

现状与传承的困惑--山东潍坊农村民居的调查和思考

一、潍坊乡村传统民居的特点及现状 　　潍坊位于山东半岛的丘陵和鲁中山区之间,南部与鲁中山区的淄博相连,北部濒临渤海,境内以平原为主,地势南高北低,除潍坊南部的青州、临朐部分是山地民居以外,大部分是平原民居.因此在潍坊传统乡村民居中,山区民居和平原、沿海民居均有,类型比较多样,但总体风格不突出,民居特征介于胶东和内陆之间.……     

Modeling Strategies for Categorical Data: Examples from Housing and Tenure Choice

Models to investigate categorical data can be divided into preprocessing, limited parameterization, and formal logit models. To illustrate the advantages of preprocessing and limited parameterization models they are applied to a data set of tenure and type of housing choice before the data are examined with hierarchical logit and nested logit models. The preprocessing approaches are useful in selecting optimal subsets of independent variables with respect to the dependent variable. The ease of application and interpretation of a limited parameterization approach extends the clarity of the results from the preprocessing approaches. Because some variables are only relevant at specific levels of other independent variables, nonstandard (nested) logit models are necessary to understand the nested relationships.     

Workers' Housing in Essex

Abstract

This paper derives from a survey carried out to identify and quantify surviving sites and structures, and assess their historic and architectural significance. The information gathered has been used to enhance the County Historic Environment Record by providing detailed records of each site and structure, a comparative assessment of their significance and prioritised recommendations for their future management and statutory protection. When a site or structure becomes the subject of development proposals, an informed response can, therefore, be made. Through such management strategies and statutory protection, landscapes and structures of significance and hence the historic and architectural character of the County can be protected for present and future generations to understand and appreciate. The survey report considered the sites and structures on an individual basis; the aggregation of structures in a particular settlement for the purposes of considering Conservation Area status; and takes a county-wide view on the comparative significance of individual sites within a local, regional and national context. This article, however, will analyse the results of this survey in order to learn more about the reasons behind why the accommodation was built, where it was built and its design.     

Housing Culture of Dongba

In late June of 2002, when I stayed in the Zuogong County seat with Tugar,chief editor of Records of Qamdo,we drove to Junyong Village, which is the site of the Dongba township government,along the Yuqu River Valley. The flourishing trees in the village provided a sharp contrast with the surrounding bare mountains.