Housing in the Third World

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Housing in the Third World
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Outline

• Housing and housing markets
• Squatter settlements
• Government Housing Policy
• Hong Kong Case Study

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Main Sources of Housing

• Public
• Private
• Squatter settlements
• Slums

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Housing Sub-markets

• Low-income rental
• Rental room in tenements, boarding house, cheap
  hotel
• Rental in illegal settlements
• Renting plot for shack
• Employer housing
• Sharers
• Typically children, or employees (disguised
  renting
• Low-income owner-occupied

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Squatter Settlements

• Formative processes
• Land invasion
• Infiltration
• Development or not?
• Consolidation of Settlements
• Security of tenure
• Access to credit
• Price of materials
• Infrastructure provision
• Land availability
• Generative or parasitic?

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Government Housing Policy

• Indifference
• Reactionary responses
• Westernized responses
• Tokenism
• Misplaced philanthropism
• Large-scale public housing
• Innovative responses
• Aided self-help upgrading
• Site Service

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Key Features of Hong Kong Story

• Basic living costs low
• Cheap food from China
• Low public rents
• Government control of land ownership
• Able to finance large-scale construction
• Link between housing and economic development
• Promotion of ownership

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Singapores Housing Policy

• Ideological commitment to universal provision
• Housing decommodified
• Subsidies differentiated according to income
• Savings, financing and upgrading
• Market forces and upgrading

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Take-home Messages

• Housing problems much more severe than in the
  developed world
• Informal construction and self-help is common way
  of constructing housing
• Key elements of the Hong Kong and Singapore
  successful public housing policies includes
  government limitation of land speculation, and
  promotion of housing ownership