Welfare Reform on the Web (February 2002): Social Housing - Ovrseas

ENABLING SLUM REDEVELOPMENT IN MUMBAI: POLICY PARADOX IN PRACTICE

V. Mukhija

Housing Studies vol. 16, 2001, p.791-806

Since the late 1960s and 1970s governments in developing countries have been encouraged to withdraw from direct housing provision and to concentrate on enabling the private sector to deliver housing. Enabling has been promoted as consisting of decentralisation, privatisation, deregulation and demand-driven development. Paper presents evidence from slum redevelopment programmes in Mumbai, India that demonstrates that enabling is likely to be much more complicated. Enabling housing provision through market mechanisms requires complex and sophisticated state involvement to provide institutional support for well-functioning property markets.

THE LIBERAL/CONSERVATIVE DIVIDE IN THE HISTORY OF HOUSING POLICY IN THE UNITED STATES

P. Marcuse

Housing Studies, vol. 16, 2001, p.717-756

The history of housing policy in the US is commonly presented as a progression shifting from liberal to conservative to liberal depending on the political party in power. Liberal in US political terminology means social democratic, not market-oriented as in European parlance. However, author argues that Liberal and Conservative positions in US housing policy vary in degree, rather than in kind; entirely different policies substantially challenging both approaches can readily be managed but have never been dominant so far.