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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, 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.

The Mexican housing industry was hindered by a shrinking market and tighter financial conditions related to the Great Recession. Moreover, in 2013, a major change in public policy further modified this industry’s environment. Mexico’s new urban development policy supported inner-city new housing, in contrast to the previous policy that incentivized sprawling. Three out of eight publicly traded housing companies filed for bankruptcy protection in 2013-2014, arguably because of the effects of the Great Recession and the new housing policy. The purpose of this study is to identify firm-level factors that caused some firms to file for bankruptcy protection.

Three approaches were used to analyze the housing industry in Mexico from 2006 to 2015. First, a policy analysis focused on the new housing policy and its consequences for housebuilding companies. Second, a financial analysis of the two economic shocks was performed in search for the transmission mechanisms in the companies’ financial metrics. Third, a retrospective analysis using the Fisher’s exact test was used to identify variables statistically associated with companies filing for bankruptcy protection.

There are two features significantly associated with bankruptcy protection: increasing market share while being vertically integrated, as a response to the Great Recession, and the relative magnitude of the loss on firms’ inventory value due to the new public policy. Neither Altman’s Z-score values nor firm size or degree of integration are significantly related to bankruptcy.

The small sample size presented a challenge, as most statistical methodologies require large samples; however, this was overcome by using the Fisher’s exact test.

The main contribution of this paper is the statistical identification of the possible causes for bankruptcy protection in Mexico amongst homebuilding firms in 2013 and 2014, which have not previously been reported in the literature.

This study aims to explore the housing demand of urban fringe residents in southwest Ankara. Two subquestions were developed: What are the respondents’ perceptions of Ankara city center and which characteristics do they prioritize for living in the urban fringe? Data were collected through a face-to-face household survey, and a hedonic regression model was developed based on responses.

Increasing housing demand, lifestyle change and faulty housing policies in Ankara have triggered urban sprawl along fringe areas, which causes several urban problems. Considering that urban sprawl is related to housing demand, it is essential to examine the structure of housing demand and the preference to live near the urban fringe.

According to the survey results, security, crime, noise pollution, traffic congestion and parking problems that reduce the welfare of Ankara city center encouraged expansion toward the rural–urban fringe, in addition to low-quality or traditional housing attributes. The urban core became unattractive to the respondents for being insecure, chaotic and down-market. The hedonic model showed that seven variables, all related to housing characteristics, best explain the housing demand in the area. Socioeconomic status and lifestyle were found to be associated with the desire to live on the urban fringe, also indicating the snob effect.

The authors propose taking domain-specific housing demand patterns in the spatial planning assumptions and housing policies into consideration for a well-governed urban development in Ankara. Making the city center more appealing through rehabilitation should be preferable rather than limiting demand on the urban fringe with a strict intervention in housing supply.

The purpose of this paper is to explore urban mobilisation patterns in two post-Soviet cities: Vilnius and Moscow. Both cities were subject to similar housing and urban policy during Soviet times, and they have implemented urban development using neoliberal market principles, provoking grassroots opposition from citizens to privatisation and marketisation of their housing environment and local public space. However, the differing conditions of democratic Lithuanian and authoritarian Russian public governance offer different opportunities and set different constraints for neighbourhood mobilisation. The purpose is to contrast local community mobilisations under the two regimes and highlight the differences between and similarities in the activists’ repertoires of actions in two distinct political and economic urban settings.

The paper employs qualitative methodology using data from semi-structured interviews conducted with community activists and state officials, presented using a comparative case study design.

Although, citizens’ mobilisations in the two cities are reactions to the neoliberalisation of housing and local public space, they take different forms. In Vilnius they are institutionalised and receive formal support from national and local authorities. Moreover, support from the EU encourages organisational development and provides material and cognitive resources for grassroots urban mobilisations. In contrast, residents’ mobilisations in Moscow are informal and face fierce opposition from local authorities. However, even in an authoritarian setting, grassroots mobilisations evolve using creative strategies to circumvent institutional constraints.

Little attention has been paid to grassroots urban mobilisations in post-Soviet cities. There is also a lack of comparative attempts to show variation in post-Soviet urban activism related to housing and local public space.

Social integration is an important goal of contemporary urban policy in Chile. Using the concept of conviviality understood as the “art of living in community” (Esteva, 2012), this work analyses two socially integrated housing developments in Chile. This paper argues that materially interspersing different socioeconomic groups within housing developments is insufficient on its own to achieve the objectives of social integration espoused in the national urban policy. In particular, it leaves aside community and cultural processes and therefore neglects considerations of inclusion, equity, and conviviality. Furthermore, it is insufficient on its own in meeting sustainable cities and quality of life objectives of the National Urban Development Policy. As a result, we raise critical questions for the implementation of national policy objectives to combat the segregation of cities. The concept of assessing conviviality is proposed as a means to further understand social integration.

Emerging states confront staggering shortages in adequate housing stock. In response, governments have sought various supply-based solutions to mitigate growing housing deficits. While many of these mass housing efforts have not produced the desired outcome, the Republic of Korea’s Two Million Housing Drive (TMHD) was a comparatively successful intervention with its implementation from 1988 to 1992. The five-year initiative exceeded its objective with the construction of over 2.1 million units – of which two-thirds were built by the private sector. The purpose of this study is to analyse Korea’s relatively effective supply-based affordable housing approach and then extrapolate best practices and lessons learned with applications for real estate markets in the developing world. Comparative understanding of the TMHD can help promote greater access to adequate housing in the developing world, especially for the many who continue to live in impoverished conditions.

The research uses content-based and quantitative methods to analyze the case of the TMHD in Korea toward informing improvements in corresponding supply-based housing policies and programs in developing states.

While there were challenges with the TMHD, the program repositioned Korea’s urban housing market with greater access to affordable housing in cities for the lower-income and vulnerable. The TMHD enabled the subsequent effectiveness of demand-based housing policies.

There are research limitations in fully understanding the complex relationships between mass housing programs, economic growth and government policies. The abductive reasoning used in this case study enables in-depth analysis of the TMHD with generalizable inferences for middle-range theories with applications for emerging markets.

The experience of the TMHD can promote policy harmonization by helping optimize corresponding mass housing efforts in the developing world with the potential to similarly close quantitative housing deficits and expand access to adequate housing for lower-income and vulnerable households.

Deeper understanding of the TMHD can lead to reforms of other mass housing initiatives in emerging markets to make adequate housing more accessible and economical for the benefit of underserved segments of society.

The Korean experience with the TMHD can inform the optimization of other similar large-scale policies and programs seeking to sustainably overcome shortfalls in adequate housing that have become all too common in the developing world.

Housing policy is a key tool in urban development and has multiple functions that directly affect human welfare. This study aims to review housing policies in Iran from a critical perspective. In fact, the study and pathology of housing policies are considered in this research.

To advance this research, a quantitative (fuzzy TOPSIS and fuzzy AHP) method was used to rank the policies and the qualitative method (interview and literature review) was used for the pathology of housing policies.

The failure of policies to provide housing in Iran is decisive, but social housing policy has a relative superiority to other policies. Causes of failure of Iranian housing policies are as follows in a pathological perspective: commodification and speculative approach to housing; lake of social and physical sustainability; social stratification and classification; inconsistency with environmental conditions; non-indigenous nature of housing policies; exclusion of local institutions in the decision-making process; and the dominance of a populist perspective on housing.

This study is a comprehensive study because it has been extracted from the dissertation. By reading this study, the reader will be aware of the general conditions of the Iranian housing sector.

This paper aims to examine the factors affecting the implementation of affordable housing policies in two Chinese municipal governments. Since 2010, the Chinese government has enforced an ambitious plan to adopt affordable housing provisions accompanying a series of urbanization programs. Furthermore, the policy implementation at the local level has led to various outcomes but has been scarcely investigated. The views of policy implementation from local officials are crucial in the context of intergovernmental relations. Therefore, it is important to examine the views of local public officials on the development status and challenges in the context of Chinese intergovernmental relations.

This paper verifies which factors exert significant impacts on the willingness of local officials to adapt affordable housing policies by using the logistic regression model and marginal effect estimation. With original data from the fieldwork surveys of city administrators, the measures incorporated local characteristics as well as the intergovernmental support from the central government in two selected megacities, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

There are significant differences in local investment between the selected cities. Intergovernmental support from the central government, city development strategies, implementation perceptions of local governments and land supply, all significantly impact the selection of an affordable housing program and its overall implementation.

To the best of the authors’ understanding, this study would be one of the first to empirically explore the view of municipal public officials on affordable housing policy in China. This paper provides an empirical analysis from municipal public officials on the local implementation of affordable housing policies in China. As the outcome of housing policies actually depends on the implementation willingness of public officials and the overall performance of local governments, this explorative study would benefit the future development of China’s affordable housing policy.

In India – the largest democracy and second most populated country globally – the housing research domain is relatively under-researched and under-theorized. To support and advance research in this domain, this study aims to form and organize the repository of extant academic knowledge in the subject matter of housing research in India.

This study uses a scoping review methodology and a thematic analysis method. All the articles analyzed in this study were systematically searched by following the scoping review approach proposed by Arksey and O’Malley (2005). An initial search found 365 articles and finally, 108 articles that met the inclusion criteria were analyzed using the thematic analysis method.

The data extracted from these 108 articles were analyzed using thematic analysis to arrive at four thematic areas, namely, housing policy, slum housing, housing finance and affordable housing. These thematic areas and 11 sub-themes present under them were used to present a thematic map of housing policy research in India.

This paper contributes to presenting an up-to-date literature review of the housing policy research in India.

To the best of our knowledge, this scoping review focused on housing research in India is the first of its kind. We hope that this study provides a repository of extant research on housing research in India to help current and future researchers.

An affordability challenge for the governments is the trade-off between cost and quality. The housing gap is a reality for developing countries, and most frequently the gap is met by producing large numbers of low-cost housing units for the maximum number of people. Declining affordability is known to adversely affect both owner occupiers and tenants. The needy, due to an uninterested private sector, usually has either to depend on low quality housing mislocated in the city, without supporting infra- and social structures, or on squatter dwelling. The second option, despite being informal is responsive to the spatial and cultural needs of the users who ideally partake in the construction. The article queries and explores the ways in which the process and cultural preferences of the users of squatter houses, as builder-owner-occupants, are harmoniously intermingled in squatter housing; and draw housing policy implications through institutionalising some of their potentials. Considering squatters are at the lowest stratum areas and that their housing constitutes significant portion of the urban stock, government's pareto optimal which claims maximum good for the maximum number of people at minimum cost is seemingly justified with the quite restricted budget of governments of developing countries.