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Housing policies in India (last modified in 2017) define “affordable housing” on three main parameters – income of the target group, dwelling unit size and house price to income ratio. The Covid-19 pandemic has questioned the robustness of the defining parameters of affordable housing. This paper aims to study the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on housing affordability and adequacy for the urban poor and highlights how one pandemic has directly challenged the practicality of the affordable housing criteria in urban India.

The study is based on a pilot test conducted through interviews with the consumer group. Furthermore, the affordable housing policies of urban India were studied in conjunction with the pandemic guidelines laid down by the World Health Organization. The consumer responses were analyzed in relation to the policies and guidelines to arrive at the inferences. The secondary case examples of the Dharavi slums in Mumbai and the Savda Ghevra slum resettlement colony in Delhi, along with the findings of the primary survey in the economically weaker section category, are used to formulate the conclusions.

The pilot test conducted for the target consumer group clearly indicates that (i) the pandemic has severely affected the housing purchase capacity of the target consumer, thereby questioning the “affordability” of housing; (ii) proposed housing solutions are inadequate to enable livability, thereby questioning the “adequacy” of housing; and (iii) proposed housing solutions are inept to accommodate pandemic protocols. The Covid-19 pandemic and the conditions it imposed on the built environment clearly highlight the inadequacy of affordable housing parameters being followed in urban India.

Further research may be conducted on global best practices in housing, which may advise the housing policies in India.

The study suggests key areas that need intervention and modification to make the housing policies more robust and effective.

The study explores the social sustainability aspects of housing, which are often considered secondary in policies.

Because housing has a direct bearing on the physical, social and mental well-being of society, it is imperative to find housing solutions that are safe and resilient for a sustainable future. This paper is an original attempt by the author to question and highlight how the current affordable housing solutions adopted in urban India will continue to fail under any external adverse conditions unless modifications are considered in the existing housing parameters.

Pandemic process has led re-questioning home environments within adaptations of new activities inside due to the restriction of outdoor usage. This paper aims to reveal spatial transformations carried out through the time spent at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A qualitative study is carried out based on Garfinkel’s (1961) ethnomethodology method (documentary method of interpretation). Analysis focused on the first month of pandemic in which urgent adaptations and solutions produced at home, and the situation in last two weeks of pandemic is analyzed within a control group and comparisons were made. Perec’s (1974) statement of “a user's manual” is used as a checklist of time-space-activity observations proposed on “mondayness, tuesdayness, wednesdayness, thursdayness, fridayness, saturdayness and sundayness.” Instead of daily period, activities performed on a weekly scale were recorded and time-dependent shifts of functions were revealed.

Findings introduced new discussion topics to examine dwelling spaces in “new normal.” Comparisons indicate that hypothesis of gathering all activities in room in terms of “life fits into room” concept is directed through rapid spatial behaviors in daily life as primary adaptation.

Although pandemic process continues after study, analysis of first four weeks are accepted as the period of rapid change and compared by last two weeks of pandemic.

Pandemic indicators proposed in study brings along that there is little information on the subject in literature. Socio-spatial findings address the examinations of spatial transformations into pandemic adaptation.

This paper aims to focus on the housing situation in Indian cities and the various stakeholders involved in the housing sector. This study addresses the conflict in expectations of the supply and demand side of the housing and establishes the factors crucial to making housing successful for all the stakeholders, essential for sustainable urban development.

This paper is developed using the content analysis of preceding independent reviews on housing sustainability by authors across the globe, a review of the current housing situation in Indian cities and a Pilot study of the desired qualitative aspects of housing by the consumer group.

This paper identifies the challenges and constraints of the various stakeholders involved in the housing sector. A comprehensive list of all the parameters, both qualitative and quantitative, essential for successful housing implementation, focused on the preferences of the demand side, also referred to as the “Critical Success Factors (CSFs)” is generated. The results advocate a strict consideration and integration of these CSFs with the housing policies for all future housing projects.

Most of the studies conducted in the past have reviewed the housing situation in India from the perspective of the government authorities and the initiatives undertaken by them to improve the housing crisis. However, a gap exists in achieving a balanced understanding of the supply-side constraints, with the demand-side expectations from the housing. Focusing only on the supply without adequately understanding the consumption can only lead to further chaos in the already turbulent housing situation.

To the best of author’s knowledge, this is among the first attempts to address the housing scenario in urban centers of India, simultaneously from the perspective of both the demand side and the supply side of the housing, giving additional impetus to the expectations of the demand side which are often ignored. This study becomes more relevant in the ongoing pandemic situation to be able to provide appropriate and acceptable housing solutions to all.

This article aims to explore the changes and continuity in housing patterns of Turkish society comparing traditional and contemporary usage. In this context, the spatial and social structures of housing patterns are studied comparatively from an historical perspective. The article is based on research projects carried out by the author that aimed to identify the effects of socio-cultural and psychological factors on the spatial formation, meaning and use of domestic space in different types of Turkish dwellings. Examples chosen from a number of case studies in different housing patterns are mainly those of the Middle Asian Tent, the Traditional Turkish House and Squatter Housing ‘Gecekondu’. The article consists of six sections. In the first two, the aim and the general concept of the paper are defined, the research field is explained and the problem is specified. In the third section, the formation of spatial setting in different housing pattern of Turkish settlers will be analysed by comparing the tent, traditional house and squatter house. The fourth section focuses on related theoretical concepts in environmental behavioural studies with the conceptual model of culture and space interaction system in terms of meaning and use of home space. In the last two sections, the field study is presented and the article builds on the findings of the case studies to offer some proposals for new design principles.

This paper aims to describe the outcome of a research program carried out by the Austrian IIBW to support the Romanian Government in redesigning its national housing law in order to cope with specific problems on the Romanian housing market, such as the absence of tenure choice and affordable and tenure‐secure rental housing.

Specific housing problems and requirements of legal changes were identified by policy makers and in previous studies. Solutions are provided by an international team of experts with the target to include European best practice concerning rental and limited‐profit rental law.

This paper concentrates on three major topics within the restructuring of the Romanian housing law that permit integrating European best practice in the field of housing policy. First, Romanian rental housing legislation is reconsidered and a market‐based relative price control based on the German experience and on written contracts is proposed. Second, a new public‐private‐partnership (PPP) housing law, building on the framework of PPP social housing providers in Europe, and especially Austria, is considered. A rigid frame of checks and balances and public compensation of social service obligations are core elements. Third, special attention is paid to the compliance of proposed measures with European Union legislation on competition, which is of major importance for any legal recommendations to be applicable.

The proposed legal changes are designed to foster the development of a functional long‐term private and social rental market in order to meet the housing needs of the Romanian population.

The overarching research program this paper builds on was commissioned by the Romanian Government and was intended to address specific and current problems on the Romanian housing market.

Concerning migration on a national level, two phenomena emerge: people migrating from one region to another and people moving from the countryside to the cities. The geographical shift of the population between regions in a country is a slow process. In Sweden, only a few percent of the population migrate yearly. Nevertheless, migration has caused and still causes considerable redistribution of the population toward the metropolitan regions in Sweden. This section will emphasize general trends in population concentration through urbanization and migration in Sweden and compare these trends with changes in other countries.

Model the drivers of Australian housing affordability and forecast equilibrium affordability. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Uses autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to model housing affordability measured by the Housing Industry Association's Housing Affordability Index (HAI) and the housing price-earnings multiplier (HPE). Six sets of explanatory variables, including housing finance, housing construction activity and costs, economic growth, population, alternative investments and taxation.

Primary long-run drivers are housing finance, dwelling approvals and financial assets. Economic and population growth only have a short-run influence, while housing taxation has limited impact in long run. Forecasts indicate long-run HAI equilibrium values of 109 (above the historical minimum of 107) and a HPE of seven (below the recent historical maximum of 8.2).

Reduced form model encompassing both demand and supply factors involves complicated interpretation given direct and indirect effects on affordability. Analysis at national level ignores regional impacts that may also affect housing affordability.

The impact of the low rate of new dwelling approvals (public and private sector in the long run and public sector in the short run) points to a persistent structural gap between the demand and supply of housing. Strong economic and population growth often blamed for the worsening of housing affordability, at least in the 2000s, has no impact at the aggregate national level.

Only known paper to provide quantitative estimates of macro drivers of Australian housing affordability over a long period using alternative measures of relative housing affordability.

There is a rich literary tradition of depicting human-dwelling places (usually houses) as living bodies, stretching from the Middle Ages to contemporary fiction. On several occasions, the interaction between the characters in these works and the house-body entity described has taken the form of a digestive journey. Rooms come to symbolise mouths, kitchens and even bowels, and sometimes the human body and mind are gradually incorporated into the external architectural space. This chapter examines two literary works in which this occurs – the ‘House of Temperance’ in Spencer's The Faerie Queene (1590) and Shirley Jackson's novel The Haunting of Hill House (1959). These two examples, from two very different literary traditions (Renaissance allegorical and modern Gothic horror respectively) show the fine line between revelation and horror, how spatial materiality and meaning are flexible and how a building may transform the character within it both psychologically and physically.

The purpose of this paper is to outline an early adopter “low energy” domestic dwelling, one of the social houses built by a collaboration between a university, the local council. The origins of this project are from the early days of interest in sustainable housing, the 1970s. The dwellings were innovative and built to what became known as “the Salford design” which performed to unusual specifications, using approximately 75 per cent less energy than the UK average for space heating and over 40 per cent less than for houses built to what were then the standard building regulations.

A qualitative and interpretative stance was deemed to be the most appropriate. Within that lens, interviews were chosen as the primary research instrument.

A marked feature of the results is the variation in energy consumption by different households. A Salford-designed house could be habitable throughout the year without any space heating at all, comfortable at 10 per cent and very comfortable at 25 per cent of normal consumption.

As there continues to be interest and commitment to reducing energy – not just from the United Kingdom but also on a worldwide scale – the United Nations Conference of the Parties known as COP 22 (2016) met in Morocco to take forward many of the initiatives outlined in the Paris Agreement 2015. It is of interest, then, that the latest set of interviews showed that the houses built to the innovative and original 1970s’ Salford design principles, protected by highly insulated well-sealed envelopes, are even presently functioning at a relatively low energy threshold.

The purpose of the present study is to explore the factors that influence the residential location choice of households in the Indian context.

Two sub-urban towns of Kolkata, i.e. Biddhanagar Municipal Corporation and Rajarhat Newtown, are taken as case studies. In total, 34 variables are considered related to the household's socioeconomic background (10), dwelling (3), travel (2) and level of importance of neighborhood characteristics (19). A revealed preference household survey is conducted, which resulted in the collection of 390 samples. Firstly, 19 level of importance variables are deduced to 3 latent factors using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. After that, a utility function is estimated using a multinomial logit regression to identify significant factors.

The results indicate the significance of car ownership, work travel time, work mode, monthly income, proximity to work, proximity to family/relative/friends, proximity to quality schools, quality of physical infrastructure such as water availability, power availability and housing typology among others in the residential location choice of households.

Kolkata, a major metropolitan area in eastern India, has been experiencing space constraints to cater to the housing demand of the ever-increasing population. Although satellite towns are being developed, the infrastructure landscape in such towns is uneven, resulting in more housing demand in one area than another. The study furnishes significant findings to develop more informed policies to attract households in low-demand areas and manage high-demand areas to achieve sustainable planning.

Considering the importance of geographical context, it is the first study on residential location choice, providing a perspective of household behavior from eastern India. It also shows the importance of physical infrastructure attributes in residential location choice for developing countries, which is seldom employed in the current practice. Moreover, previous studies (although few) done in India consider the objective value of location characteristics. The present study focuses on subjective value or the level of importance perceived by respondents.