Showing papers in "Housing Theory and Society in 2012"

Green Renovations: Intersections of Daily Routines, Housing Aspirations and Narratives of Environmental Sustainability

Abstract: Undertaking home renovation is complex and traumatic, but remains a ubiquitous phenomenon. Home renovators wishing to reduce their environmental impact encounter added layers of complexity. Increasingly, opportunities to improve a dwelling’s performance present themselves in the course of home renovations, giving rise to “green renovations”. Policy makers encourage green renovations through market mechanisms and rational response incentives. Yet we argue this approach could be better informed by understanding the lived experience of households, their housing aspirations and daily routines. To this end, this paper presents the findings from a qualitative, in-depth study of self-identified green renovators in Melbourne, Australia. Adopting an insider approach we explore green renovations from the perspective of householders. In doing so, our focus is on the social practices occurring in and enabled by rooms subject to renovation, rather than the renovation process itself. During interviews and walk...

Housing and Health: A Social Ecological Perspective on the US Foreclosure Crisis

Abstract: This study adds to the literature linking housing and health by illustrating how poor health can increase the risk of foreclosure, and how the threat of foreclosure can negatively affect mental health. Our findings support the social ecological model of health and housing disparities and point to health care, employment, and social welfare policies as fundamental social causes that place populations at risk for foreclosure and illness. Medical debt, illness and injury, lack of adequate health insurance, as well as caring for extended family are triggers for mortgage delinquency and risk of home loss. Poor health becomes a key point of entry into mortgage delinquency and foreclosure. Changes in mental health may result from the stress and anxiety of financial hardship, from efforts to remedy the situation, and from loss of ontological security. These effects may worsen prospects for avoiding foreclosure by impairing decision-making, straining marriages to the point of divorce, and reducing homeown...

Impacts of urban consolidation on urban liveability: comparing an inner and outer suburb in Brisbane, Australia

Abstract: Urban consolidation involving increasing densification around existing nodes of urban infrastructure is a strategy pursued by all levels of government for addressing rapid population growth in urban regions. This has both positive and negative impacts on the everyday lives of residents (or their urban liveability as perceived by them), even though urban consolidation is commonly resisted by residents. This paper aims to better understand impacts of urban consolidation on liveability by comparing similarities and differences in impacts between two Brisbane suburbs: an outer fringe suburb (Wynnum) and an inner city suburb (West End). Wynnum residents generally expressed less resistance to urban consolidation, with some residents willing to trade additional densification for additional amenities. Two issues concerning residents in both suburbs were aesthetics of high-rise development and traffic congestion. Building heights more than a few storeys above surrounding buildings were commonly seen as de...

Homelessness as a choice

Abstract: It has long been assumed that homelessness is a personal choice. As a choice, homelessness is embedded within debates about deviant behaviours and problematic pathologies. The “homeless person” is either making calculated and immoral choices to be homeless, or they are perceived to be powerless agents who lack the capacity to exercise choices. Rarely has it been adequately explained, however, what choosing homelessness means and how people who are homeless make sense of their choices. The structural and individual circumstances that situate and make choices meaningful require robust consideration. Drawing on ethnographic research with people sleeping rough, this article unpacks and illuminates some of the hidden complexities that underpin choices to be homeless. With an objective of retaining people’s sense for autonomy, the article contributes to the field by arguing that choice can be understood as an expression of agency and a commitment to a “normal” identity.

Moving Home: Theorizing Housing Within a Politics of Mobility

Abstract: It has been argued that the social sciences have undergone a “mobility turn” over the last decade: a paradigm shift in which movement is seen to have become increasingly important to our social worlds. For the most part, housing studies is yet to extensively engage with this “paradigm shift”. In an attempt to engage with the ideas that the “mobility turn” has thrown up for housing studies this paper grapples with two key questions. First, where does housing studies fit in the new mobilities paradigm in the social sciences? And, second, how can housing studies contribute to this paradigm shift? This paper does this through an examination of how a politics of mobility can be usefully employed and extended by housing researchers. Looking specifically at two current dimensions of this politics: mobility as a right, and mobility as a resource, this paper argues that a third dimension – mobility as governmentality – should be introduced to the mobility turn’s politics of mobility.

The Politics of Home: Belonging and Nostalgia in Europe and the United States

Abstract: new approach to analyse public policies and raises many unanswered questions. Designing a public policy very often is a political question, whereas politics is an art of making compromise. As the author points out, one should distinguish between a just public policy and a sensible public policy (p. 197). With the philosophical perspective in mind, the existing literature could be re-examined. This book contributes to the policy studies literature and applied social philosophy literature. I would like to read an enlarged edition of this monograph with more emphasis on Hong Kong.

Suburbia, Settler Colonialism and the World Turned Inside Out

Abstract: While its primary aim is to explore possibilities for new research, this article contends that suburban and settler colonial imaginaries are related. It suggests that an awareness of the settler colonial “situation” and its dynamics can help an original approach to the interpretation of suburban forms (and vice versa). References to the suburban “frontier” have been frequent in both public discourse and scholarly debate, and suburban phenomena characterize in one way or another all settler societies. This connection, however, has not been the subject of sustained investigation. Thus, this article focuses on shared traditions of anti-urban perception and on a determination to pre-emptively secede from the metropole/metropolis in the presence of growing tensions and contradictions. Similarly, while settler colonial projects constitute separate political entities via an “outward” movement towards various “frontiers of settlement”, independent suburbs are also established via an “outward” movement an...

Deconstructing Coincidence: How Middle-Class Households use Various Forms of Capital to Find a Home

Abstract: When asked to explain how they acquired a home middle-class households often forward a series of coincidences. This paper shows that what is experienced as sheer luck may actually be explicable by taking into account the various forms of capital people command. In this paper theories of Bourdieu and De Certeau are applied to the housing market and are used to explore the strategies and tactics people apply to acquire a home. For this study I draw on in-depth semi-structured interviews carried out in Copenhagen, Denmark and Amsterdam, the Netherlands among middle-class households. This paper shows that in order to explain access to housing it is necessary to investigate housing market practices and include other forms of capital than merely financial, such as for example social networks, embodied taste, and knowledge of the legal and institutional context. It is suggested that the way in which class is spatially produced tends to be working differently for various fractions of the middle class.

Occupant Experience of Everyday Life in Some of the First Passive Houses in Denmark

Abstract: In future years the building industry will face great challenges in fulfilling stricter energy demands One way to meet requirements is to build passive houses In Germany passive houses have been constructed for many years but in Denmark the building industry has just begun The pilot project, named Comfort Houses, aims to show the industry that it is possible to construct traditional Danish houses as passive houses and promote them as comfortable houses For this to be a success in the future, it is necessary to fulfil the occupants’ needs and wishes This study aims to communicate how the occupants of the Comfort Houses experience living in a passive house and if their lives and everyday practices have changed after moving in This is done through interviews with the occupants about their everyday life both in their previous home and in the Comfort House The results show that the occupants’ everyday lives have changed – some as a result of the architectural and structural solutions, others as

Lifestyle Ideas of House Builders and Housing Investors

Abstract: Builders and investors are major contributors to the framing and construction of lifestyles. Here, we explore the emergence and communication of the lifestyle ideas of house builders and housing investors, and characterize builders and investors with respect to societal and cultural changes. In doing so we draw on a content analysis of housing advertisements published in Basel, Switzerland, from 1870 to 2007. In these documents we found a transition from a class-based society, which is usually defined by physical and socio-economic characteristics, to a society that increasingly refers to lifestyles differentiated by symbolic, cultural codes. Builders and investors mainly communicate perceived mainstream needs and stereotypical lifestyle ideas. Only a small group consisting of non-profit and public housing investors tend to act as innovators of lifestyles, meaning that a certain cultural distance to the (commercial) housing industry may be necessary to escape from its peer group orientation. At l...

Housing Pathways of Young People Who Have Left Out-of-Home State Care

Abstract: As a group, young people leaving care experience multiple forms of disadvantage, including high rates of homelessness and insecure housing. Researchers have described the associated housing and life trajectories in terms of pathways but few have explicitly referenced the metaphor to the interrelationship of structure and agency that is core to Clapham’s housing pathways approach. In this paper we draw on semi-structured interviews with 77 young people who have left state care in the last five years. We identify two distinct pathways young people travel when they leave care: a smooth and a volatile pathway. Young people on both pathways face similar structural disadvantages but are differentiated in terms of their experiences in care, their ability to plan and control their transition into independent living, the degree to which supportive social networks are available and the constraints they face accessing and maintaining housing. We argue social networks are a particularly important element of ...

The Emergence of Inclusionary Housing: Continuity and Change in the Provision of Land for Social Housing in the Netherlands

Abstract: After being introduced in the US in the 1970s, inclusionary housing is now found around the world. Even the Netherlands, which is known for its tradition of public land and housing provision, has adopted it. The aim of this paper is to trace how this change occurred by applying a theory of institutional change. This theory regards institutional change as a two-stage event. Critical junctures for institutional change are preceded by a critical moment in which hegemonic discourses and institutional paths are being challenged by external developments, internal institutional reflection, or a combination of both. In this paper, it is argued that active land provision by Dutch local authorities was challenged by changes in the land market and the dynamics in the social housing sector. These changes led to a critical moment in which public land policy came under pressure, creating a window for new institutional arrangements to be examined. Successful lobbying by housing associations during discussions o...

“Cash the Equity and Realize Yourself”: an Anthropological Approach to House Values

Abstract: The article presents results from an anthropological research project on privately owned single family houses in Denmark On the basis of ethnographic interviews and within a framework of anthropological theory it argues that an understanding of the equity or “free value” as the literal Danish translation of this economic term would be cannot be achieved without taking into consideration values attached to the house in a broad sense People’s choices about whether or not to realize the free value of the house by remortgaging are determined by many factors besides economic ones Social values and obligations towards kin and other people are involved in such choices, and the article argues that anthropological theories on materiality, values and economics as embedded can contribute to a more holistic understanding of equity and the house as property and asset for middle class families

Do We Need a ‘Slow Housing’ Movement?

Abstract: This paper critically explores the counter-intuitive case for a "slow housing movement" by drawing on insights from alternatives to the status quo such as the "slow food movement" and the "slow city movement - cittaslow". The empirical context is the fluctuating national ambitions for a "big" Australia and pressure to provide homes to support the anticipated population growth by 2050. The now all too familiar (neoliberal) reform mantra is the need to get housing developments into the market quicker by reducing bureaucracy and regulatory processes. But is this (as is often portrayed) the only option available? The paper emphasizes the role of theory in creatively challenging and informing the housing policy and practice status quo as a means by which to further more socially just and sustainable urban outcomes. This involves probing the silences in housing research and starting new debates around how this intersects with housing policy reform, progressive theory and democratic housing outcomes more broadly.

“Right to Housing” in Hong Kong: Perspectives from the Hong Kong Community

Abstract: The “right to housing” incorporates at least five different dimensions, all of which are indispensible for minimum satisfaction of this right: (1) the “right to adequate housing”; (2) the “right to affordable housing”; (3) the “right to enjoy” one’s housing without arbitrary interference; (4) freedom from the threat of arbitrary forced eviction; and (5) the “right of choice” in relation to: (5a) the decision to rent or home-ownership; and (5b) the neighbourhood one is to live in accordance with needs, preferences and lifestyle Though the provision of public rental housing in Hong Kong supports the “right to housing” of the poorer class, unfortunately the low-income and non-self-contained private housing tenants are facing a somewhat disturbing situation Although the “right to housing” for self-contained private housing tenants, government assisted home-owners and non-government-assisted home-owners is generally protected, their “right to enjoy housing” is, to a certain extent, circumscribed by

Can Ageing Improve Neighbourhoods? Revisiting Neighbourhood Life-Cycle Theory

Abstract: Neighbourhood life-cycle theory has provided some important insights into the question of how population ageing may influence local neighbourhoods. But this theory has been rightly criticized by urban scholars for its deterministic and highly pessimistic approach. More recent theoretical ideas about “positive ageing” challenge the underlying pessimistic view of ageing in neighbourhood life-cycle theory, and provide opportunities to consider new and more optimistic conceptualizations of neighbourhood ageing. This paper provides a brief review of some of the key literature underpinning neighbourhood life-cycle theory and, drawing on some of its principal concepts, proposes two hypothetical neighbourhood life-cycle scenarios, one “pessimistic” and the other “optimistic”, which represent two ends of a full spectrum of neighbourhood life cycles.

Housing Careers, Price-Rent Ratios and Rental Equivalence

Abstract: This paper analyses price–rent (PR) ratios under different housing career structures. A housing market with three segments for owner-occupation and a segment with rental housing is applied. A housing career is characterized by how households move between rentals and owner-occupied housing. While rents are completely passed through to the house price index when rentals represent alternative housing to all forms of owner-occupation, non-constant PR ratios are derived from more realistic housing career structures. In the presence of equity induced up-trading housing markets dominated by family homes are likely to see short-term deviations in PR ratios exceeding those of housing markets dominated by starter homes.

Gerotopia: Risky Housing for an Ageing Population

Abstract: This article explores the influence that baby boomer lifestyle preferences are having on housing landscapes as they enter retirement. The analysis focuses on the emerging phenomenon, in Australia a...

The Meaning of Rehabilitation of Multi-Storey Housing for the Residents

Abstract: The rehabilitation of blocks of flats can be planned and executed in very different ways. This article describes two case studies of rehabilitation processes, focusing on what can be learned from the organizational processes and the meaning of the rehabilitation for the residents. Residents, initiators, architects and contractors have all been interviewed. One of the case studies involved two blocks of flats with municipal apartments for substance abusers ,where the residents participated in the planning of the housing rehabilitation. The other case study reviewed a housing cooperative where the residents, through an elected board and chairman, took on an initiative to undertake a complete rehabilitation. In both case studies most residents were very pleased with the results, and had a feeling of ownership towards the project and their houses. The rehabilitation process and architectural changes positively affected their social status and personal pride. The common criteria for success seems not ...

Explaining the Link between Housing and Health: All or Nothing?

Abstract: Housing generally, and US mortgage markets in particular, helped trigger the global financial crisis of the mid-2000s. A distinctive feature of that crisis was the unprecedented extent to which it ...

Housing and Heritage: Perceptions of “Culture” and its Influence among Policy-Makers and Housing Professionals in Southern and Central Appalachia

Abstract: Mountainous “Appalachia” is an historically impoverished and isolated region of the USA that has in recent years experienced a wave of second home development in certain parts, resulting in a housing affordability dilemma for some towns. Some also suggest that the region is home to a distinctive “mountain culture”. In academic circles, however, the use of the very term “culture” has been criticized as unrealistically denoting something fixed and stable, and also for obscuring oppressive power relationships within a society. This study investigates whether housing professionals in the region subscribe to fixed or fluid notions of Appalachian culture and discusses the implications for housing policy and planning practice that may follow.

Glimpses through the Gates: Gentrification and the Continuing Histories of the Devon County Pauper Lunatic Asylum

Abstract: This paper considers the continuing histories of the post-asylum landscape of the Devon County Pauper Lunatic Asylum, built between 1842 and 1845 and closed in 1987, with reference to its gentrification into Devington Park, a gated housing community. It begins by considering how disciplinary power has been reconfigured and revalorized by gentrification, including the deployment of “neo-disciplinary power” to control those outside the Devington Park boundary so as to maintain the positional good of security offered by the development. The paper then moves to consider the influence of gentrification on participant psychogeographies, demonstrating how the preservation paradox has engendered a shift from dormant to active participation. In terms of Tuan’s (1974) concept of topophilia Devington Park has become nostalgically haunted by “past structures of meaning and material presences from other times and lives” (Till 2005:9)

Toward a research agenda at the intersections of housing and health

Abstract: We would like to thank Terry Hartig for contributing his editorial vision and skill to this focus issue of Housing, Theory and Society. After hearing a much earlier presentation of this work at the...

Related Risks: Foreclosure, Health Problems and Economic Insecurity in the USA

Abstract: Libman, Fields and Saegert provide a rich analysis of how health problems and mortgage distress in the USA are often wrapped up in a complex web of common causation and vicious circles. Their socia...

Context and Risk: What You Find Depends on What and How You Ask

Abstract: Libman, Fields and Saegert explore the relationship between health and foreclosure and offer a few important contributions. First, they consider a complex nuanced relationship where poor health and/or healthcare costs may contribute to foreclosure and the process of foreclosure may contribute to poor health. Like researchers at the Urban Institute (Manjarrez, Popkin & Guernsey 2007), who weren’t looking for a major storyline about health and housing, Libman, Fields and Saegert found one. It is not surprising, by any stretch of the imagination, that there is a relationship between housing and health. We might anticipate that poor health contributes to foreclosure and foreclosure contributes to poor health but there is little qualitative research that explores borrower experiences during the foreclosure crisis that might illuminate how this works. The authors’ observations contribute to a better understanding of the reality experienced in these communities of a multi-directional relationship rather than a uni-causal one. This article presents a more complex picture of real life experiences, of fear and dread and of energy spent trying to avoid foreclosure. It extends the experience to others in the home and into other spheres such as education. While some argue that homeowners in foreclosure benefit by staying in homes rentand care-free, this article suggests that many people are deeply connected to their homes and are not so free to walk away. The authors’ findings, and the foreclosure crisis that continues to unfold across the country, suggest the importance of expanding this research to explore the intersection of foreclosure and health for renters and borrowers (not only homeowners), their children and other family members, and communities and staff of the organizations that seek to help them. Experiences working with communities in New Jersey suggest many as yet unexplored questions and Libman, Fields and Saegert point us to them. Second, they consider complex processes that produced problems on both fronts – health and foreclosure. They avoid a tendency to attribute poor health and foreclosure to poor individual decision making and instead consider the systematic

Introduction to the Special Edition: Housing and Demographic Change

Abstract: The exponential growth in population has been a de!ning feature of the modern age – in 1974 the world’s population was just 4 billion and it is now estimated to be 7 billion and is likely to increase to 9.3 billion by 2050 (UNFPA 2011). Population growth will continue to have a signi!cant impact on urban regions and governments will be forced to confront a complex set of political, environmental, social and economic challenges. Taking Australia as an example, it is predicted that the nation’s population will grow from its current 22.3 million to 35 million by 2050 and over this time the proportion of people of working age is due to fall from 65% to 61% (Australian Government, Department of Infrastructure and Transport 2011). The fall in the number of people working will reduce the capacity for economic growth and generating tax revenue. We can also expect increased levels of car dependency and greater demands for health care as the population ages. The issues that face policy makers in Australia are broadly similar to those in North America, Europe and Japan. In other regions such as Africa and countries such as India, the fertility rate remains high with the proportion of young people (under 25) in some nation states already reaching 60% (UNFPA 2011).

Strands in the Neoliberal Web: Linking Foreclosures, Health and Employment

Abstract: Libman, Fields and Saegert have provided an interesting and thoughtful overview of the interrelationships between the personal sufferings caused by the recent housing crisis and its health effects. Based upon a series of intensive interviews and focus groups conducted in various areas around the US, this research provides an insight into the extraordinary difficulties faced by many individuals and families caught up in the mortgage crisis and how those difficulties both led to and stemmed from health issues. The primary contribution of this research is that it provides an entry point to understanding the on-the-ground effects of a web of neoliberal policies that have had such a substantial impact on low and moderate income families. The authors also provide a thorough and useful review of relevant literature with a particular focus on the health related effects of stress due to debt and foreclosure. Given that this literature is probably not well known by many housing scholars, this is a particularly useful part of the paper. There are also some significant limitations to the research which the authors identify reasonably well, but that prevent the work from providing more than an entry point to the issues of housing, health and neoliberal policy. I will elaborate on these limitations in more detail, but first I will concentrate a bit more on the strengths of the paper. While the literature on foreclosure is expanding at a rapid pace, it is still rare to find high quality qualitative work that gives voice to the concerns of those who have gone through or are going through the foreclosure crisis. This research stems from a project that provides just such a voice. In particular, previous work from the project has provided compelling arguments that shed light on the substantial difficulties that those seeking help from servicers or financial institutions face (Fields, Libman & Saegert 2010). From a methodological perspective the work is quite strong. The authors avoid the temptation to generalize excessively from their results and provide carefully worded and limited interpretations. While this is at times

Why We Should Want to "Subsidize Losers' Mortgages"

Abstract: In February 2009, a Chicago business news editor, Rick Santelli, asked “if we really wanted to subsidize losers’ mortgages” (Clark 2010) in a speech that is credited with being a major trigger for the right wing Tea Party movement in the USA (Zaitchik 2010). The well written, methodologically sound and timely article by Libman, Fields and Saegert goes a long way towards explaining why we might want to subsidize “losers’” mortgages. One of the strengths of this article is that foreclosure (known as repossession in the UK) is situated within the wider “upstream” context of neoliberal policies and minimal health insurance and assistance for those who become ill and or unable to work. The article clearly shows how the US system severely exacerbates the problems for those who would be facing hardship irrespective of their country’s policies. The article suggests that much of US policy is based on neoliberalism’s advocacy of individuality. To critique this, the paper provides good evidence to show that home owners do not exist in a vacuum. Their actions and experiences affect and are affected by those around them. Thus foreclosure is shown to have widespread results. The lack of state responsibility increases the responsibilities placed upon home owners for friends and relations. The article’s evidence illustrates how a lack of a safety net detracts from their ability to fulfil these responsibilities. In addition to describing how poor health, unemployment and relationship breakdown lead to foreclosure, the article clearly details the potential negative effects of foreclosure and threat of foreclosure on health and well-being with increases in suicidal feelings, depression, anxiety, relationship breakdown, ability to hold down a job and ability to afford food. Moreover rather than causing superficial or passing effects, the authors argue that foreclosure disrupts ontological security or