Why the Homeless Rebel: Housing Struggles in post-Apartheid South Africa

Abstract

Post-apartheid housing struggles urgently need to be addressed in order to consolidate the inclusivist democracy in South Africa. Former white minority governments restricted housing in order to control the movement of Africans and their labour. This paper analyses aspects of post-apartheid housing protest. The argument is that such protests are rooted in a problematic rights discourse of the anti-apartheid struggle, and in the new constitution's recognition of the right of access to adequate housing, which is nonetheless, subjected to fiscal constraints. The article's second focus is on a legacy of land dispossession, which also hinders housing delivery. Failure to realise the right to housing fuels some of the most important conflict that will shape future organisation of state institutions and relations between the state and society.     

Capital's Metropolis: Chicago and the Transformation of American Housing Policy

The US economic recovery of the 1990s accelerated amidst privatization, selective devolution and the reinvention of the public sector itself. Simultaneously, mortgage finance and assisted housing policy were recast in terms of market processes, individual responsibility and private home-ownership, even as gentrification enjoyed a dramatic resurgence. The intersection of these seemingly unrelated processes signifies an important transformation of the American inner city. Nowhere are these connections more explicit than in Chicago, where newly devolved and flexible policy infrastructures are built on the ashes of prominent experiments of previous generations. In this paper we use Chicago as a context to explore the linkages between reinvestment, housing finance and the reinvention of assisted housing. We analyse local and federal developments in assisted housing policy and develop a multivariate analysis of mortgage loans in Chicago's neighbourhoods during the 1990s expansion. New constructions of scale in assisted housing, exemplifed by Chicago's Lake Parc Place and the federal HOPE VI programme, constitute a centripetal devolution mediated by the relationship between public policy and local private market forces. National changes in housing finance have altered historical processes of redlining, disinvestment, and gentrification. Mortgage capital, traditionally responsible for the creation or exacerbation of rent gaps, now lubricates the flow of capital into the gentrifying frontier of the inner city. The intensified market discipline of housing policy, based partly on theories incubated in Chicago, suggests a new regime of neighbourhood change in the American inner city.     

The programme local d'habitat: preparing a housing strategy for Lille

By the end of the 1970s, the French government had begun to realize that the large‐scale provision of social housing had created as many problems as it had solved. Social exclusion, unemployment and racial tension appeared to be particularly concentrated in the peripheral housing estates that had been the result of the housing policy of the 1960s. In the 1990s, the government developed the programme local d'habitat (PLH; local housing programme) as a means of creating an integrated housing policy across the whole of a given urban area. This article looks at the origins and evolution of the PLH, and presents the programme in the context of local administration and the structures in place for the provision and improvement of housing. It then turns to the application of the PLH to the communauté urbaine of Lille. It boks at the problems to be addressed within the Lille conurbation and the way the PLH responded to them. The article concludes with a reflection on why the PLH has not proceeded and what may be learnt from this apparent failure.     

Cooperative Housing and Social Cohesion: The Role of Linking Social Capital

Abstract

The article examines the role of housing cooperatives for social cohesion in the city by introducing linking social capital which grasps the vertical dimension of social capital. Housing cooperatives represent a crucial intermediate level between residents and urban housing policy, thus providing opportunity structures for bottom-linked citizen participation. Drawing on the case of Vienna, a large-scale household survey and interviews with key informants provide empirical evidence on the importance of a form of social capital which links actors at different levels in the spatial hierarchy: residents, housing managers and political decision-makers. The findings add to our understanding of the opportunities and problems with resident participation in a policy field structured by multi-level governance. Our two-level analysis shows that the dominant model of governance, top-down as well as neoliberal, has structurally limited the room for participatory practices in cooperative housing. Nevertheless, we argue that professional housing cooperatives have a potential to give residents a voice beyond the neighbourhood. Their strong linkages with public decision-makers at different scales can help leverage ideas and resources of residents.     

The Problem of the Epoch? Labour and Housing, 1918-51

As one of the salient political issues in twentieth-centuryBritain, housing helped define the differences between the mainpolitical parties but also gave rise to tensions and conflictingapproaches within them. This article traces some of these tensionsand anomalies as they manifested themselves in Labour's housingpolicies between the first and second world wars. While withinthe Labour movement there was a common acceptance of the needfor expanded public housing provision, the ways in which thisneed was to be met were the subject of considerable dissension.In the early inter-war period, Labour's housing policies werestrongly influenced by the building unions' notions of industrialself-government, ranging from guild socialism and the BuildingGuild to the corporatist inflexions of the Wheatley HousingAct of 1924. In the short term, there was little evidence ofthe marriage of industrial innovation, modernist aesthetics,and socialist politics that characterized responses to the housingproblem in other parts of Europe. However, by the time of theSecond World War the ascendancy of a professional modernizingdiscourse within the Labour Party, along with the emergenceof a younger generation of left-wing architects and planners,led to the marginalization of the building unions within Labour'spolicy-making apparatus. Increasingly restive at the developmentof Labour’s housing policy, union leaders continued toarticulate notions of economic citizenship rooted in guild socialism.These were largely disregarded, and have remained so in theliteratures both on housing policy and the Labour Party itself. ^* Kevin.morgan{at}manchester.ac.uk. Interviews cited in this articlewere recorded as part of a research project funded by the ESRC,award no R000237924.     

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.     

Reconstruction Housing in North Norway: Gender and the Reception of the Modern Era

Abstract

At the end of the Second World War, large areas of North Norway had to be rebuilt as a result of war damage. It is estimated that 12,000 dwellings housing 60,000 people were ruined. The limited funds available necessitated a low-budget form of housing when the area was rebuilt. The government perceived in this situation the possibility of house modernization, for which standardized, pre-approved drawings were a solution. This paper focuses on the reconstruction houses and the discussion about what kind of house was most suited to the area. It refers to the housing involvement of one of the female architects, and to the architects in general as mediators between the central authorities in the south and the people/local government in the north. It also sheds some light on the decisions made at a family level concerning the question of housing. Gender differences in the acceptance of, or resistance to, the modernization of these dwellings during the reconstruction period (1945–1960) in North Norway form the main topic of this article.     

Housing the workforce in 19th-century east Lancashire: past processes,enduring perceptions and contemporary meanings

Abstract

The Lancashire Historic Town Survey, undertaken by Lancashire County Council between 2001 and 2006, examined the complex and varied history of 'working-class' housing in the east Lancashire textile towns. Often seen by the media and politicians as uniform and of low quality, and frequently condemned as slum dwellings, the surviving stock of such buildings results from past responses, both to housing requirements and to 'working-class' communities. It is argued that east Lancashire's housing has been a victim of inaccurate perceptions, both past and present, and of political bias and myth-making.     

The Space of Local Control in the Devolution of us Public Housing Policy

Sweeping changes in national policy aim to radically transform public housing in the United States. The goal is to reduce social isolation and increase opportunities for low income tenants by demolishing ‘worst case’ housing, most of which is modern, high‐rise buildings with high vacancy and crime rates, and replacing it with ‘mixed‐income’ developments and tenant based assistance to disperse current public housing families. Transformation relies on the national government devolving more decision‐making power to local government and public housing authorities. The assumption here is that decentralizing the responsibility for public housing will yield more effective results and be more efficient. This paper explores the problematic nature of decentralization as it has been conceptualized in policy discourse, focusing on the underlying assumptions about the benefits of increasing local control in the implementation of national policy. As this paper describes, this conceived space of local control does not take into account the spatial features that have historically shaped where and how low income families live in the US, including racism and classism and a general aversion by the market to produce affordable rental units and mixed‐income developments. As a result, this conceived space of local control places the burden on low income residents to make transformation a success. To make this case, Wittgenstein's (1958) post‐structural view of language is combined with Lefebvre's view of space to provide a framework in which to examine US housing policy discourse as a ‘space producing’ activity. The Chicago Housing Authority's Plan for Transformation is used to illustrate how local efforts to transform public housing reproduce a functional space for local control that is incapable of generating many of the proposed benefits of decentralization for public housing tenants.     

The Politics of Crisis: Deconstructing the Dominant Narratives of the Housing Crisis

This paper considers how dominant narratives of the housing crisis, since the 2008 banking crisis in England, have been created and what actions taken in its name. The paper deconstructs the term “crisis”, highlighting that its meaning has evolved from a critical moment to a protracted narrative which must be understood historically. Through discourse analysis into housing and party political policy, media and think tank reports, we argue that the employment of housing crisis by the government and others perceives it as an outcome of housing supply constraints and over-regulation—narratives that have justified subsequent policy actions aimed at propping up the housing and financial systems, opening new avenues for housing commodification, deregulation and financialisation and reproducing crisis anew. However, we note that these narratives can also break down and space can be created for the articulation of new narratives which refocus housing crises as emerging from inequality and class divisions.     

Changing Ethnic Segregation and Housing Disadvantage in Dundee

Abstract

Dundee has a small black and minority ethnic (BME) population, which has been neglected by previous research, as have BME populations in small towns and cities generally. As in other British cities, the residential locations of the main BME groups are distinct from that of the white population. After briefly reviewing the history of settlement in Dundee, this paper examines the extent to which patterns of ethnic segregation have changed between 1991 and 2001. Some moves towards dispersal and suburbanisation are identified but there are important contrasts between different BME groups. The implications of segregation for housing availability are assessed through Census of Population data. The hypothesis is posed that the consequences of segregation for housing disadvantage are greater in small cities such as Dundee.     

The Form and Function of Poverty: Examining National Identity through Public Housing Architecture

Abstract

Lawrence J. Vale tells us that “grand symbolic state buildings need to be understood in terms of the political and cultural contexts that helped to bring them into being,” ¹ 1. Lawrence J. Vale, Architecture, Power, and National Identity (London: Routledge, 1992), 3. and that these buildings can help us understand our national identity. But all buildings are part of a broader political and cultural context. Even unimpressive state-funded buildings express meaning about the politics, power, and priorities of a nation. Because these buildings are not purposefully symbolic, their symbolism has the potential to provide a less contrived—though perhaps less appealing—portrayal of the nation in which they are built. Public housing provides an example of this idea. Public housing in the United States is latent with negative meanings that are reinforced and perpetuated by its architecture, siting, and design. This article examines three historical and iconic public housing communities and analyzes the meanings of these spaces through Goodman's four frames of reference—denotation, exemplification, metaphorical expression, and mediated reference—to determine what these spaces, as architecture, say about the American national identity and our relationship with public housing.     

Permeability and Protest in Lane 49: Entangling Materialities of Place with Housing Activism in Shanghai

Since China’s implementation of a neo‐liberal housing regime, housing activism has boomed. Whilst activism is ultimately in place, as increasingly recognised within protest work, there is limited reflection upon how permeable material histories are entangled with the throwntogetherness of place as a site for protest. Employing ethnography over three months, this article follows the emergence, organisation and implementation of housing activism in Lane 49, a public housing community in downtown Shanghai. Utilising feminist geography and feminist political theorisations of material permeability this article contributes to Chinese geographies of protest, providing a local epistemology of housing activism which demonstrates the importance of drawing materiality into understandings of activist tactics. The article also contributes to radical geographies of protest by deconstructing the idea of public protest in a public place and thus offering opportunities to demonstrate how, through blurring public‐private binaries, protest can emerge and survive in authoritative governance regimes.     

Public Housing and Intergovernmental Reform in the 1990s

The problem identified in this paper is twofold. One is the plight of public housing at the end of the decade, with State programs undermined by Commonwealth funding cuts; the other is the problem of intergovernmental reform and its consequences for discrete areas of policy such as housing. The paper traces developments in CommonwealthState housing arrangements, beginning with the reforms initiated through the Council of Australian Governments through to the still uncertain future of public housing under the Howard government. It examines a number of inquiries into housing and recommendations for reform which served the plans of reformist governments intent on separating out the functional roles and responsibilities of the Commonwealth and the States. In particular, these inquiries advocated an ‘affordability’s benchmark which sought to blur the distinction between public and private rental housing leading, inevitably, to the residualisation of the public housing sector.     

User-controlled Housing: Desirability and Feasibility

User-controlled housing is defined as a process in which the residents—not only professionals and developers—make significant decisions regarding the design and the construction or renovation of their homes. This paper argues that it is relevant to and should be commonly used in formal systems of housing in the developed countries. It draws support for its arguments from empirical evidence, primarily from Israel and the Netherlands. Much of the evidence is related to housing upgrading by moderate-income and middle-income households, which was found to be highly desirable from individual and public points of view. The paper recommends to decision-makers and planners to facilitate user-controlled housing and to make it an ordinary part of developing new neighbourhoods and renovating old ones.     

A programme for the conservation of architectural plasters in earthen ruins in the American Southwest: Fort Union National Monument,New Mexico,USA

Abstract

Plasters constitute an important component of many ruined architectural and archaeological sites. Methods for their in situ conservation have lagged far behind the field treatment of other materials due to their ephemeral nature and the lack of programmatic laboratory and field research. A preservation strategy involving documentation, stabilization, interpretation and maintenance offers a methodological approach adaptable to most contexts. A pilot conservation programme is described for the stabilization and interpretation of the lime plasters within the nineteenth-century adobe ruins of Fort Union National Monument in New Mexico. Methods of documentation, emergency stabilization, injection hydraulic lime grouting and mortar repairs are described.     

Housing the Loom, 1790-1850: A study of industrial building and mechanisation in a transitional period

Abstract

The architecture of the textile mill changed radically during the late 18th and 19th centuries. Influences affecting mill design included the way in which production was organised and the degree to which processes were mechanised. This article examines how the industry developed new building types to accommodate looms. In the early period, handlooms were frequently concentrated in distinctive loomshops. The powerloom, introduced in the early 19th century, presented new problems, and in an experimental period different branches of the industry developed different means of housing the new machines. The single-storeyed shed was the dominant building type adopted for powered weaving, but there were in the silk and tape branches prominent examples of factories in which powerlooms were housed in purpose-built multi-storeyed mills.     

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.     

Neocolonial Urbanism? La Rénovation Urbaine in Paris

This paper analyses the programme of redeveloping housing estates in France overseen by the Agence Nationale de la Rénovation Urbaine (ANRU). Under this programme social housing reconstruction is undertaken in a nationally coordinated fashion in order to “valorize”, “secure” and socially “mix” estates. The paper highlights the political and neo‐colonial aspects of this programme and the wider state spatial strategies it is part of. Redevelopment projects not only further gentrifying land‐rent valorization, state rescaling and territorially stigmatizing symbolic violence; they also reorganize territorial relations of domination in multiple, also racialized, neo‐colonial and partly hegemonic ways. In a longer view, they respond to the “urban revolution” of 1968 (Garnier) and to the “anti‐colonial revolution” of independence and anti‐racist movements (Khiari). The paper builds on a framework that articulates marxist (Lefebvrean) and anti‐colonial (Fanonian) lineages while drawing on research on the neo‐colonial aspects of the French state.