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Recent studies in the realm of housing design avow for the concept of Liveable Cities; an aspect which in turn, places emphasis on the concept of home range. The home range is regarded as the challenge to create a ‘near environment’ that is humanistic and fair, community-oriented and environmentally conscious; a relatively new conception towards responsive and sustainable environments for residents' well-being. Considering that socio-cultural needs in tandem with architectural and urban characteristics correspond to residents perspectives of their home environment; hence, understanding residents' perceptions of their home range should provide designers with deeper insights for creating more responsive residential environments. This study aimed at identifying aspects that contribute to shaping the residents' perception of their home range. The field study included two housing features within the same social class in Egypt with a focus on Cairo: residents of the city's original districts and immigrants of the city to newly suburban gated communities. The methodology was an in-depth qualitative study, exploratory in nature, based on a theoretical content analysis of literature on home range, and a field survey that investigated the residents' perception of the concept. Tools for data gathering relied on photographic and observation methods; together with a structured interview on a random sample in each of the two defined residential environments. Discussions relate findings to planning concepts, and finally, results have generated a framework for decision makers and designers.

Despite the current fast track urban development process that characterizes the city of Doha, very few studies have addressed several important growth aspects, including the examination of the way in which its inhabitants comprehend and react to its built environment and the resulting spatial experience. This paper examines inhabitants' spatial experience in the city by applying cognitive mapping procedures coupled with an attitude survey. 108 responses were received, analyzed, and classified in three categories a) living, working, and visiting patterns; b) comprehension of home range, home zone, and movement; and c) ethnic affiliation: Qataris and other Arab expatriates. The findings contribute to an in-depth understanding of the inhabitants' spatial experience. The study concludes with an emphasis that by establishing knowledge generated from research findings that are derived from direct experience of inhabitants including movement patterns and the rhythm of geographical locations within the city, the various aspects of how certain areas work within the urban structure of the city can be elucidated.

By comparing regression models, this study aims to analyze the added home value of green sustainability features and green efficiency characteristics, rather than green certifications, in the city of Austin.

The adoption of home green energy efficiency upgrades has emerged as a new trend in the real estate industry, offering several benefits to builders and home buyers. These include tax reductions, health improvements and energy savings. Previous studies have shown that energy-certified single-family homes command a premium in the marketplace. However, the literature is limited in its analysis of the effects of green upgrades and certification on different types of single-family homes. To address this gap, this research collected data from 21,292 multiple listing services (MLS) closed home-selling listings in Austin, Texas, over a period of 35 months.

The analysis results showed that green efficiency features could generally increase single-family housing prices by 11.9%, whereas green sustainability upgrades can potentially bring a 11.7% higher selling price. Although green housing certification did not have significant effects on most housing groups, it did increase closing prices by 13.2% for single-family residences sold at the medium price range, which is higher than the impacts from simply listing the green features on MLS.

The study contributes to the body of knowledge by examining the market value of broadly defined energy efficiency and sustainability features in the residential housing market. The findings can help policymakers, brokerage firms, home builders and owners adjust their policies and strategies related to single-family home sales and mortgage approvals. The research also highlights the potential benefits of capitalizing on green housing features other than certifications.

This paper examines job satisfaction and participation in decision making in three home health aide facilities with different organizational structures (worker-owned for-profit, for-profit with no participation or ownership by workers, and nonprofit).

More than 600 surveys were completed by home health aides across the three facilities. The author also engaged in participant observation during training sessions and other meetings and conducted a small number of interviews with caregivers and agency management.

Home health aides at the worker-owned, participative decision making organization were significantly more satisfied with their jobs than those at the other agencies. Results for the other agencies were not significantly distinguishable from one another.

This study involved respondents from one of each type of business. A study across several of each type of organization would allow more focus on the effects of the structural characteristics of the organizations.

In the United States, the work that home health aides perform provides a valuable service to society. On behalf of caregivers and those for whom they provide care, conditions of the work need improvement. If participative democratic workplaces provide better outcomes, they should receive more attention from lawmakers, the business community, and researchers.

This research highlights the working conditions of the people (primarily women) who perform this work. The poor compensation received is a reminder of inequality in opportunity for some workers and of the value placed on this type of caring labor.

This research is unique in its focus on work environment and outcomes in home health care across nonprofit, for-profit, and worker-owned for-profit organizations. The findings of different job satisfaction outcomes from the others in the worker-owned organization and similar outcomes in the nonprofit and conventional for-profit organizations are also unique.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the content, purpose and effectiveness of the handover of information between care home staff beginning and completing a shift.

This was an exploratory study drawing on ethnographic methods. A total of 27 interviews with a range of care home staff, including managers, registered nurses, senior care workers and care workers were undertaken in five care homes selected to give a good contrast in terms of size, ownership, shift patterns and type of handover.

Most handovers were short – lasting 15 min or so – and were held in the office or secluded area in which staff could talk privately. They lasted longer in one home in which the incoming and outgoing shifts physically visited each resident’s room and the communal spaces. Staff felt that handovers were important for the efficient running of the home as well as to alert everyone to changes in a resident’s health or important events, such as a hospital appointment. In one home, handheld devices enabled staff to follow a resident’s care plan and update what was happening in real time.

This was a small scale study based on data from a limited number of care homes.

The increasing popularity of 12 h shifts means that many homes only hold two short handovers early in the morning and in the evening when the night staff arrive. There appears to be a trend to reduce the number of staff paid to attend handover. Despite this, handovers remain an important component of the routine of a care home. The information contained in handover relates to the running of the care home, as well as residents’ wellbeing, suggesting that, while their content overlaps with written records in the home, they are not superfluous.

Although the literature on handovers in hospitals is extensive, this appears to be the first published study of handover practices in care homes.

This paper aims to analyse the development and application of the conceptual framework within which housing scholars can think, talk about and advocate for “home”.

It reflects on the theoretical progress that has been made in embedding a legal concept of home in the last decade, and identifies opportunities for this scholarship to support critical engagement with laws and policies that give content to home meanings.

A key goal for the concept of home is to help us to think about problems differently, by highlighting important issues flowing from the human relationship with home; with the ways in which the idea of home is present or absent in legal responses to home issues. A focus on home meanings enables us to examine questions which are not always deemed “relevant” to legal proceedings, for example, the human, social and personal costs of displacement and dispossession. The concept of home provides the vocabulary, and the theoretical framework, for articulating these human claims more coherently. It enables us to identify those problems in need of policy attention; to develop a narrative to express them; and to generate support for solving them.

Ten years after the publication of “The meaning of home”, this article reflects on the development of the legal concept of home, and the range of contemporary housing issues to which its applications are both relevant and significant.

Speed bumps invite varied responses from homeowners, drivers and policymakers. Parents of small children like speed bumps, if they slow the passing traffic, but prospective home buyers may reject a home with a speed bump nearby, contemplating the traversal of it thousand times during an ownership period. The purpose of this study is to empirically identify the effect of speed bumps on home values.

Analysis presented here is based on an examination of home sales prices and exploits variation in the number of speed bumps traversed and the installation of speed bumps to identify the effect of speed bumps on home values. An anonymous online survey is also used to shed light on drivers of the empirical results.

Initial results exploiting variation in the number of bumps traversed suggest speed bumps are associated with reduced residential property values. An estimated treatment effect of speed bump installation underscores the original findings. Finally, survey results imply that older homeowners and homeowners with children may favor speed bumps but less than the disfavor of those who do not.

The research presented here applies to speed bumps in residential areas and on streets not considered through streets.

The findings suggest that planners should investigate options such as medians and roundabouts instead of speed bumps.

These results suggest that communities can be visually improved and home values lifted through the removal of speed bumps and installation of other traffic control devices.

This research is valuable to residential developers, planners and neighborhood associations across the country.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the affordability of Malaysian housing market, sufficiency of affordable housing and factors influencing the housing affordability in Malaysia.

In this study, qualitative research approach was adopted. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten industry practitioners from developers and real estate agencies and further validation with three industry experts.

The findings reveal that housing affordability is a grave concern to average Malaysians, and the supply of affordable housing is insufficient in the current residential property market. Income, property price, land cost and demand and supply are identified as significant factors affecting housing affordability.

The research findings provide an insight rather than definitive information, as the small sample size could limit the generalizability of the findings. Future research can include participants from the public sector and focus on the policy options.

This paper provided numerous policies to ensure successful deliverability of affordable housing which eases government to partner with private sector to formulate a systematic framework for implementation of affordable housing programs and schemes.

There is a need for government to pay more attention to housing needs of middle-income groups. Also, the government is urged to ensure transparent balloting process in every implementation of affordable housing programs.

The paper emphasised the issues of undersupply of affordable housing and mismatch of property price and income. The paper also highlights the key reasons behind high housing affordability index. Hence, it is hoped that this paper will encourage positive debate and gain some attention from the policymakers, practitioners and researchers in Malaysia and beyond.

This paper reports on data from two linked studies in the UK and Germany which evaluated the potential of a quality management system, Qual A Sess, to play a role in self‐regulation in care homes for older people in the context of calls for EU‐wide harmonization of standards. Qual A Sess was developed by German and UK organisations to assess the quality of care in care homes and mechanisms to improve the quality of care through the development of action plans involving residents, families and staff in the process. This paper compares the outcomes of Qual A Sess in care homes in both countries, by focusing on the data available about the action plans generated by the Qual A Sess process, and suggests that standardization of quality indicators may be inappropriate in the context of local differences.