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1 – 10 of over 61000Emmanuel Itodo Daniel, Olalekan Oshodi, Daniel Dabara and Nenpin Dimka
Housing provides constructed space for human activities. Literature indicates that housing impacts wealth, education attainment and health outcomes, among others. Because of its…
Abstract
Purpose
Housing provides constructed space for human activities. Literature indicates that housing impacts wealth, education attainment and health outcomes, among others. Because of its contributions to society, it is essential to develop and implement strategies that address the housing shortage experienced in most cities across the globe. This study aims to unpack the factors affecting housing production in the UK and chart the way forward.
Design/methodology/approach
In addressing this study's aim, an interprivitst approach was adopted and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 experienced professionals. Data were collected across the four nations of the UK (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland).
Findings
The results indicated that the opportunistic behaviour of stakeholders is one of the main factors affecting housing production in the study area. Also, modern construction methods, collaborative practices, government intervention and affordable housing schemes were identified as key strategies for addressing housing production factors.
Practical implications
This study identified strategies for mitigating housing production issues that provide a focal point to all stakeholders keen on filling the housing shortage gap and improving productivity to channel their resources and effort accordingly.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to empirically analyse the influencing factors on the housing gap in the UK from the perspective of the supply side to provide information that could lead towards closing the said gap.
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Abukar Warsame, Mats Wilhelmsson and Lena Borg
The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent that interest subsidies have impacted on the total production of Swedish single‐ and multifamily houses. It also intends to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent that interest subsidies have impacted on the total production of Swedish single‐ and multifamily houses. It also intends to examine whether tenure neutrality provision of interest subsidy that subsidy policy advocates was maintained.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a multiple regression of two models, a balanced panel data from 1975 to 2006 that consist of various related construction cost variables of all regions of Sweden will be analyzed. Instrumental variable (IV) and seemingly unrelated regressions (SUR) will be utilized to examine the role of subsidy on housing production and tenure neutrality, respectively.
Findings
The results seem to indicate that a general subsidy is expected to be ineffective since it may increase the existing stocks of a low demand region but not the housing stocks of big regions where the demand is high. Moreover, a targeted subsidy may change the balance between different types of housings since lower construction costs due to the subsidy could favor the development of certain profitable housing types.
Originality/value
The paper tries to substantiate (empirically) the assertion that subsidy policies contributed both to the production of housing units in low demand regions and distortion of the preference of different tenures.
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Despite the quantity of collaborations, the vocational network of the housing production in Ankara during its first five years (1923–1928) remains dispersed. The aim of this study…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite the quantity of collaborations, the vocational network of the housing production in Ankara during its first five years (1923–1928) remains dispersed. The aim of this study is to identify all the actors of housing production and their collaborations which shaped Ankara's urban development as the new capital city.
Design/methodology/approach
The study engages with the literature and archival documents to identify the actors of the housing production, i.e. architects, master-builders, public institutions, private companies, contractors and entrepreneurs, and their resultant vocational network in the housing production in Ankara during 1923–1928.
Findings
Due to different agendas, such as speculation, financial interests or patriotism, the construction industry in Ankara had become an arena where many paths intersected, forming an intertwined vocational network. The profession of contractor became popular, and local architects, engineers and even individuals of various other professions began to work as mediators for foreign companies and public institutions, which required support especially in large-scale projects.
Originality/value
The dispersed information revealed that the actors of the housing production remained mostly anonymous, or only the famous architects were commemorated; however, others could be found within the lines of the established literature on Ankara and/or in archival documents. This research not only focuses on “salient” actors but also highlights the “silent” actors of the housing production and prepares charts to clarify the vocational network in Ankara during its first five years to contribute to the future studies on Ankara and its housing.
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It was not until the late 1960s that housing attracted much attention from academic social scientists. Since that time the literature has expanded widely and diversified…
Abstract
It was not until the late 1960s that housing attracted much attention from academic social scientists. Since that time the literature has expanded widely and diversified, establishing housing with a specialised status in economics, sociology, politics, and in related subjects. As we would expect, the new literature covers a technical, statistical, theoretical, ideological, and historical range. Housing studies have not been conceived and interpreted in a monolithic way, with generally accepted concepts and principles, or with uniformly fixed and precise methodological approaches. Instead, some studies have been derived selectively from diverse bases in conventional theories in economics or sociology, or politics. Others have their origins in less conventional social theory, including neo‐Marxist theory which has had a wider intellectual following in the modern democracies since the mid‐1970s. With all this diversity, and in a context where ideological positions compete, housing studies have consequently left in their wake some significant controversies and some gaps in evaluative perspective. In short, the new housing intellectuals have written from personal commitments to particular cognitive, theoretical, ideological, and national positions and experiences. This present piece of writing takes up the two main themes which have emerged in the recent literature. These themes are first, questions relating to building and developing housing theory, and, second, the issue of how we are to conceptualise housing and relate it to policy studies. We shall be arguing that the two themes are closely related: in order to create a useful housing theory we must have awareness and understanding of housing practice and the nature of housing.
Eder Martinez, Carolina K. Reid and Iris D. Tommelein
The purpose of this paper is to explore opportunities and barriers to using lean construction to address issues related to the value, quality and scalability of affordable housing…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore opportunities and barriers to using lean construction to address issues related to the value, quality and scalability of affordable housing production in Latin America.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper presents a case study of a housing developer in Ecuador that used lean construction in the design and construction stages of an affordable housing project. The study describes how the developer addressed operational challenges derived from implementing a customization strategy and analyzes qualitative and quantitative data to assess the outcomes of lean initiatives.
Findings
The developer reduced cost and delivery time without sacrificing consumer choice. However, the economic and policy conditions worked against the benefits of lean construction, demonstrating the importance of the regulatory context in facilitating or inhibiting lean initiatives and construction innovation.
Research limitations/implications
This paper focuses on conventional means for new housing construction. Self-help and upgrading are not covered.
Practical implications
The operational challenges described in this study, as well as the innovative ways to deal with them, are beneficial for practitioners seeking to improve the quality and efficiency of affordable housing construction.
Social implications
This paper advances knowledge about how to increase value and quality delivery in the built environment which may benefit low-income families.
Originality/value
This study bridges construction innovation and housing policy, discussing the potential of lean construction within the policy and regulatory environment in which affordable housing takes place.
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Le Ma, Henry Liu and Michael Sing
This study aims to address the gap by empirically exploring how residential construction-production progress, which includes project commencement, under-construction and project…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to address the gap by empirically exploring how residential construction-production progress, which includes project commencement, under-construction and project completion, responds dynamically to fluctuations in house prices.
Design/methodology/approach
A vector autoregressive model and an impulse response function are applied to simulate and analyse the circle of the stage-responsiveness of residential construction to residential property price dynamics in the state of Victoria, Australia. The quarterly numbers of dwelling units commenced, under-construction and completed are used as the proxy for the residential construction activities at three stages over the construction progress.
Findings
The analysis indicates that the dynamics are essentially transmitted throughout the construction process and can substantially impact the pace of production progress. The findings from this study provide an empirical base that should be useful in developing price-elasticity and production theories applicable to the context of residential property construction.
Research limitations/implications
The findings described above have been generated basically by examining the case of Victoria, Australia at a macro level. The generalisation of the research output needs to be verified further by future researchers using data collected from other regions/countries. Nevertheless, the reliability of the conclusions with particular practical implications can be substantially improved by future researchers by analysing more markets and production proxies at the activity level.
Practical implications
Based on new empirical findings, this research argues that building activity (i.e. under construction) played as a gateway between the construction and housing sectors, via which the inter-responsiveness of the housing supply in terms of construction activities and housing prices are transmitted.
Originality/value
This research firstly attempts to explore the inter-responsiveness between the real estate and construction sectors. A simulated circle of the stage-responsiveness of residential construction to residential property price dynamics is proposed, which can serve as a significant foundation for developing the theory of construction production.
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Yuxuan Zhang, Jingwen Wang, Rafiq Ahmad and Xinming Li
In response to increasing demand for a fully customized and individualized home environment, mass customization (MC) has been suggested as an effective strategy to fulfill the…
Abstract
Purpose
In response to increasing demand for a fully customized and individualized home environment, mass customization (MC) has been suggested as an effective strategy to fulfill the customer’s customization needs while keeping production cost-effectiveness. However, in current practice, the implementation of the MC in the industrialized housing industry has not achieved an ideal level. Little effort was devoted to customer value generation and achieving lean production in a multi-disciplinary MC environment. In this concern, a highly efficient and flexible production information system is expected to capture accurately the customer’s demand and efficiently perform work planning for encouraging customer involvement and mass efficiency production.
Design/methodology/approach
To gain an insight into the development of the MC production information system for the housing industry and to depict the interaction among system modules, this study used a design science research methodology for a case study of customized cabinet production information system development.
Findings
A prototype of the production information system was proposed in this paper, supported by three information technologies to facilitate the MC implementation in the millwork manufacturer. A focus group discussion method was carried out for evaluating the system feasibility and the subsequent survey analysis on the virtual reality (VR) interface experiment. The evaluation process results showed that the VR interface is an effective medium for design information communication and encourages customer involvement. Most participants believed that the proposed production information system could generally benefit the MC implementation and improve production efficiency.
Originality/value
This study integrated lean production principles along with building information modelling, VR and discrete-event simulation in the production information system to assist the manufacturer in effectively handling variant product information and enabling quicker reactions in response to diverse customer requirements in housing industries. The coordination among system modules and the managed information flow could be a valuable reference for future MC production system development in housing industries.
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Paul De Vries and Peter Boelhouwer
In this paper, we identify the relationship between (local) housing supply and (local) house price developments, especially in The Netherlands.
Abstract
Purpose
In this paper, we identify the relationship between (local) housing supply and (local) house price developments, especially in The Netherlands.
Design/methodology/approach
We measure the influence of new building on house prices by comparing areas designated for concentrated new building (main Dutch cities) with areas where no large housing projects are developed. On the basis of classical economic theory, if the housing market is functioning as it should, then supply will soon respond to a shock in demand and restore stability in house prices.
Findings
For the main Dutch cities, we found that an increase in supply triggers a fall in prices. In other areas the correlation coefficients are more or less zero, which can lead us to conclude that the expansion of the housing stock is market‐compliant.
Research limitations/implications
The housing market is not functioning, as it should: new supplies depend on the complex decisions of the suppliers, thus making it difficult to express statistically the causality between the house price developments and the new supplies.
Practical implications
Most studies suggest that macro data are unable to measure the true dependency between the house prices and the new building and claim at the same time that micro data sets are incomplete. Also our research was hampered by a shortage of usable data.
Originality/value
New building can push up the value of the surrounding housing because it is associated with a qualitatively better housing stock. We conclude that in regions where new building has been concentrated in designated areas, the relationship between housing production and price development is inverse.
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Murat Tas, Nilufer Tas and Nilay Cosgun
The purpose of this paper is to examine production of permanent housing in Turkey after the 1999 Marmara earthquake in terms of planning, design, and construction, and to identify…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine production of permanent housing in Turkey after the 1999 Marmara earthquake in terms of planning, design, and construction, and to identify problems that were faced. Earthquake survivors face many problems that affect the return to normalcy, including disruptions in temporary and permanent housing. To improve the earthquake survivors' social‐psychological status, it is imperative to shorten the transition from temporary to permanent housing. For the transition to be as brief as possible, planning, design, and construction of permanent housing need to be carried out seamlessly.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey is carried out among those who took part in the permanent housing production in Kocaeli, where, after the Marmara earthquake in 1999, permanent housing practices were dense.
Findings
As a result of the study, the most important problem in the production process is found to be the limited time allocated for design and construction, and the restrictions in construction materials and elements imposed by the administration. Serious losses in the disaster make the ground state the factor of greatest priority in choosing the settlement area.
Research limitations/implications
Kocaeli is chosen as the study area because after the earthquake, nearly 40 per cent of the permanent housing was constructed in Kocaeli. The study involves a multi‐dimensional inquiry in the context of site selection, area design, housing design, construction, and supervision criteria.
Originality/value
These data can serve as a resource for government/planners who develop policies for meeting post‐disaster reconstruction.
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Majd Al‐Homoud, Salem Al‐Oun and Al‐Mutasem Al‐Hindawi
The housing sector in Jordan suffers from a lack of balance between supply and demand, in general, and from the inability to meet the demands of low‐income households, in…
Abstract
Purpose
The housing sector in Jordan suffers from a lack of balance between supply and demand, in general, and from the inability to meet the demands of low‐income households, in specific. The purpose of this paper is to explore the potentials and obstacles facing low‐income housing supply. It is shown that there is undersupply in low‐income housing.
Design/methodology/approach
The attributes of the supply–demand model are explored using qualitative and quantitative research methods. The first research step was archival. Findings indicated a presence of major obstacles facing developers and hindering them from supplying low‐income housing. The second research step included face‐to‐face interviews with the local developers in three major cities: Amman, Irbid and Zarqa. They were interviewed using a semi‐structured and open‐ended questionnaire.
Findings
Results indicated that most plausible causality of undersupply of low‐income housing is due to macro‐environment attributes: controllable – management (lack of human resources and capacity building), real estate (lack of marketing skills and sales advertising), technology and construction industry (inaccessible appropriate building technology and affordable construction), land ownership and site selection (limited to the developers geographical area); and uncontrollable – financing (small capital operation and difficulties in bank loans and lending), government policies (lack of incentives, tax exemptions, and rigid laws and regulations), and social and cultural (social needs requires certain spatial arrangements and rejection of borrowing from financial institutions for religious reasons).
Practical implications
The study recommends increasing supply of low‐income housing can be achieved by various means and not by single attribute. Attributes affecting this price reduction and increase homeownership include implementing real estate principles and processes, co‐operation of all key‐players through various forms of public/private partnership, facilitating procedures in commercial banks, increasing the number of units that share services and infrastructure, constructing multi‐use housing projects, defining gradual revenue rates for services and limiting revenue rates for the housing units, developing local construction material, using simple shapes and configurations, and reducing non‐used space like the formal reception and dining areas despite their cultural value.
Research limitations/implications
Statistical inferences will be needed in a future study to complement the present study's investigation of low‐income housing production in Jordan.
Originality/value
As the first of its kind, the research help to identify policy implications for different partners (housing developers, local planning authorities, national housing and planning authorities and government policy makers) in order to increase homeownership for low‐income groups.
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