Excerpt from[i]
John Doling:
//[7]
Housing is a necessity. It is precisely because it is a necessity that people will always find somewhere to live. This will not always be a well-built, spacious and permanent dwelling with a full range of facilities. In some societies financial pressures may well force many to live in self-built shanty dwellings sited on illegal sub-divisions and without proper sewerage Systems or formal schools; others will illegally squat; some will inhabit dwellings with short-term and insecure contracts; yet others will be forced to live with parents or friends; others to sleep in the metro or in shop doorways. For some, living in a horse-drawn van or squatting may be matters of choice made around lifestyle decisions, but, in general. The solutions people find will reflect the level and stability of their incomes and the cost of various alternative housing solutions. In general, the so-called ‘Iron Law’ of housing operates: that those groups in societies with the greatest command over material resources wil1 live in the biggest and highest quality homes and those with least command will find the lowest quality solutions; and, for the latter their housing circumstances will be socially unsatisfactory.
Among the advanced industrialized countries, however, there are no examples of governments being prepared to allow the continued existence of a housing system in which all citizens have been left to search only among free market alternatives. In all such countries, governments have intervened to alter the range of solutions available, the balance of advantage and disadvantage of different solutions, and the means of access to them. They have introduced measures to modify the quantity quality, price, access and control of housing, and in so doing they have also modified the ‘Iron Law’. A feature of all governments of all industrialized countries, then, is that they have taken it upon themselves to become involved with this necessity. Whatever the ideological //[8] predilections, the level of industrialization, the demographic or social characteristics, the climate or the availability of building materials, governments have intervened widely and deeply with the production and consumption of housing. Moreover, there are grounds for suggesting, following Harsman and Quigley, that, although governments intervene widely in all major areas of welfare – health care, education, pensions and so on - as well as with some other goods and services, the interventions in housing are substantial:
All developed countries have a housing problem in some form; and all nations regardless of their orientation towards free markets or central planning have adopted a variety of housing policies. The production, consumption, financing, distribution, and location of dwellings are controlled, regulated, and subsidized in complex ways. In fact, compared to other economic commodities, housing is perhaps the most tightly regulated of all consumer goods. (Harsrnan and Quigley, 1991, p. l)
Given the universality of housing problems and of government intervention, the question can be asked: what is the nature of the problems which all this policy is seeking to address? In other words, are there or have there been, practical difficulties which have stood in the way of individual citizens enjoying an acceptable level of housing? Burns and Grebler (1977) have suggested tat the problems can be described in terms of four types of disequilibrium, a term which in this context they use, not in the usual economic sense of a disparity between supply and demand, but as a disparity between the stock of dwellings, on the one hand, and the quantity which is deemed to be ‘needed’, on the other. There can, under this definition, be an absolute shortage of adequate housing which cannot be closed in the short term by the price mechanism. One consequence is that some people may be without housing of a satisfactory standard or without housing at all.
The distinction, therefore, is between the concept of demand, which is one taken from economics and refers to the ability and willingness of the individual consumer to pay for housing, and the concept of need, which is a socially accepted aspiration describing that standard of adequacy which society as a whole adopts as an expression of the collective interest. Although they haven been posed as alternatives they are not in fact independent. What societies adopt as an adequate standard will not be unrelated to the real economy, that is to the ‘incomes //[9] and prices prevailing in the country concerned' (Needleman, 1965, p. 18). Where there is a real commitment to ensure that needs are met, the concept of social demand can be useful. This describes the ability and willingness of society, as a collective, to pay for housing. Although it is not necessarily the case that all interventions in housing markets will result in a greater consumption of real resources or public finances. Nevertheless housing policy itself can be approximately equated wit1 the concept of social demand. On this view, the decisions by governments to intervene in housing Systems have the effect of replacing, or modifying, individual demand, as the principle governing housing outcomes, with social demand.
The Burns-Grebler discussion of disequilibria can be presented in the light of the distinction between these concepts, with disequilibria being thought of as statements of need, which governments may choose to translate into statements of social demand. Static disequilibrium refers to the overall disparity between the number of dwellings in a geographical unit such as a country and the number of households. Of course, both sides of the disparity may be inter-related, for example because household formation may be constrained, or facilitated by, the availability of satisfactory housing, but, overall, static disequilibrium provides a crude measure of the current adequacy of the national stock of housing.
Dynamic disequilibrium refers to the trends over time in static disequilibrium and thus to the combined trends in housing stock and households – as to whether the disparity is widening or narrowing. Spatial disequilibrium indicates the mismatch that may occur within the different parts of a country. Over a country as a whole there could be a balance between houses and households. or even a housing surplus but the houses are not necessarily located in those regions where the households want to live. Spatial disparities can occur where there is rapid migration from rural to urban areas, perhaps associated with processes of industrialization, or with a reduction in employment opportunities in those urban areas whose economies are heavily skewed towards declining industries combined with an increase in employment in growth industry areas. In other words there can be shortages in some locations and surpluses in others. The final measure is qualitative disequilibrium which denotes that some households may be living in accommodation that falls short of s standard that would be acceptable to society at large. The accommodation may be deemed too small for the number of people living there, it may be missing facilities such as internal WC, adequate heating arrangements or a fresh water //[10] system, or it may have too limited an ability to protect those living there from the elements.
Given that the Burns-Grebler disequilibria represent a way of describing, in general terms, the housing problems with which governments of all advanced industrialized countries are faced, one question is whether they are actually the stimuli for policy making. There has been an assumption among many of those who have studied housing policy over the last 30 years that policy can be interpreted unequivocally as part of a process whereby governments react to the housing problems facing its citizens (perhaps, as here, described in terms of disequilibria) such that the objective is to increase their wellbeing, welfare or quality of life. On this view, therefore, policies start from the difficulties facing individual citizens – homelessness, overcrowding, insecurity of tenure, insanitary conditions - to which governments respond in the form of housing policy in order to improve these housin8 conditions.
But, as we shall explore in later chapters, the view that the welfare needs of the citizens of industrialized countries are an automatic trigger for the introduction of social policies is contestable. The belief that humanitarian concerns constitute the sole, or even partial, basis or trigger for housing policy, overlooks other possibilities, for example that policy may fulfil a function in stabilizing the economic and physical system as a whole. Governments may in intervene, in other words., in ways that improve the lot of those who would not otherwise be able to consume housing of a reasonable size and quality, but such an outcome is a consequence of an underlying motivation to preserve the social order. There may be a distinction, therefore, between what policies achieve in improving the housing system and what they are intended to achieve in providing a wider stability.
The argument here, then, is that whereas in all countries there are, or have been, circumstances that can be described in terms of and disequilibria and at the same time all industrialized countries have enacted housing policies, the two cannot necessarily be seen as part of a stimulus response system. The possibility of alternative links makes the understanding of the nature and origins of housing policy both a difficult and fascinating task. It is further complicated by because of both of spatial and temporal variations. Whereas all industrialized countries have enacted housing policies, there is nevertheless a very wide range of forms taken by those policies. Thus in some countries there is an emphasis on direct provision, in others on regulation, some concentrate more on production, others on consumption, and so on. Equally, there may be changes in policy over time. In other words, there is an histor- //[11]ical dimension to policy as from time to time governments repeal old legislation and enact new legislation. The stimulus for such change may be developments in the nature of housing problems, in changing perceptions of need, or perhaps in ideological developments which may lead governments to become more or less inclined to intervene in processes of supply and demand.
One way of exploring the spatial and temporal variations is by drawing on the presentation of what Bullock (1991) calls ‘the European paradigm’. In this he traces what he asserts to be the typical historical; development of national experiences of housing and the associated housing policy. Since the paradigm constitutes a number of stages, which can be tied to historical periods or milestones, when the nature of problems or the perception of them, changed, it usefully emphasizes the historical dimension of national housing policy systems. However here It is also used as an ideal type or model against which the developments in individual countries can be compared.
Bullock's starting point is the suggestion that whereas eighteenth century observers of housing had expressed 'objection to inadequate housing or overcrowding’ (Bullock, 1991, p. B004), the nineteenth century saw the linking of the phenomenon of urbanization with the sanitary reform movement which was spurred by the widespread occurrences of typhoid and cholera. Under this pressure the mid-century response was typically that governments took responsibility for imposing regulations which would ensure the greater healthiness of those living in the rapidly expanding urban areas. Housing problems were viewed as products of urbanization and industrialization arising from the dysfunctional consequences of free market solutions.
In Bullock’s view, a second typical stage occurred from the 1880s on. Housing came to be seen less as a health issue and more as an economic one, with a recognition that the incomes of the great mass of national populations were too low to enable them to afford the market price for adequate housing. In this growing awareness, the appropriate role of government was again re-assessed. The greater willingness to countenance intervention found expression in the development of non-profit alternatives to the free market. As Bullock recounts it: //[12]
In England, for example, enabling legislation is enacted so that cities like London may now build and manage their own municipal housing estates. In Germany, as in Prance, government is now for the first time prepared to sanction the use of funds at lower than market rates of interest as a source of capital for the housing co-operatives and associations of the fledgling non-profit sector. (1991. p B004)
Both world wars marked turning points. The First World was accompanied by a radical, two-pronged approach. Governments adopted regulatory frameworks aimed at rent levels and security of tenure in private rental housing. In addition, they embarked upon large-scale programmes of subsidized housing. The widespread destruction caused by the Second World War, the cessation of new building for half a decade or more and the large-scale movements of population, all contributed to a need to build quickly and in large numbers. The standard response was the mass building of social housing, a response which conformed with wider, welfare state developments. Since the mid 1970s a further turning point has been reached with the typical running down of social housing programmes, as part of a general pressure on welfare states. So, overall, within the European paradigm the view is one in which housing problems were increasingly recognized from the end of the eighteenth century on, the interventions became more and more comprehensive with a growing emphasis, particularly in the Second World War period, on social housing solutions, but with a retreat from government responsibility over the last twenty years. To what extent does this accurately describe the historical development of housing policy approaches in European countries? Most observers would undoubtedly recognize elements, particularly in those European countries in the middle latitudes, such as Britain Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, which experienced mass urbanization and industrialization in the nineteenth century. ….