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The purpose of this study is to develop a scale for measuring housing quality in the context of Pakistan.

The inductive and deductive approaches for item generation have been combined, and items have been purified using multistage expert review. Data was collected from a sizeable purposive sample of 445 respondents, and exploratory and confirmatory factor approaches used for assessing psychometric properties of the scale.

The result is a 21-item scale covering five dimensions, namely, Design and Construction Quality, Neighborhood Quality, Adequacy of Space, Quality of Institutional Services and Proximity of Basic Amenities.

This study contributes to housing quality literature by deepening our understanding of the concept of housing quality in the context of Pakistan, the world’s fifth most populous country. The findings of the study have important implications for both theory and practice.

The general aim of this research is to investigate residents' perception of the quality of public housing and factors influencing this in Ogun State Southwest Nigeria. This is in view of a paucity of published works on this subject matter and the need to upgrade the quality of public housing in urban areas in Nigeria.

Data for the study were collected through a cross sectional survey of proportionately selected 517 household heads in newly constructed public housing estates, and 90 staff members of four key public housing agencies in urban areas of Ogun State, Nigeria. Structured questionnaires were used in the collection of primary data. Descriptive statistics and categorical regression analysis were used in data analysis.

The results show that a majority of the respondents rated their current residential environment low on the quality scale. Whereas housing unit attributes were rated highest, neighbourhood facilities were rated very low on the housing quality scale. Housing delivery strategies, spatial deficiencies in housing units, organizational capacity of housing providers, age, income, education and tenure status of residents were found to be among the key factors influencing residents' perception of housing quality in the study area.

The survey was concentrated on newly constructed public housing by Ogun State government in selected urban areas. Other studies can examine housing constructed by the Federal Government of Nigeria in the study area.

Lack of access to housing services, infrastructure and neighborhood facilities accounts for poor quality of public housing in the study area. This can be improved through adequate provision of basic social amenities, organizational capacity building and adoption of appropriate housing delivery strategies by public housing providers.

A framework for studying the quality of public housing in Nigeria and other countries has been developed. The findings can assist public housing policy makers and programme managers to improve on the quality of public housing and services.

Given the importance of hostels to students’ welfare and academic performance and recognition of the roles youths can play for affordable university housing, this study aims to investigate hostel management problems in the Buea Municipality, an educational hub in the South West Region of Cameroon. It explores potentials for youth advocacy for affordable university housing within the process of efficient hostel management.

The data were collected through a descriptive survey design from May to July 2015 via reconnaissance surveys, field observation, photographs, administration of questionnaires to hostel tenants (students) and interviews with hostel managers and law enforcement officials. The data have been presented and analysed using descriptive statistical techniques involving frequency tables, charts and percentages. Cartographic techniques have also been used to locate the study area.

It was found that hostel management problems in Buea stem from flaws arising from both hostel managers (landlords and/or caretakers) and hostel tenants (students) in contravention to affordable student housing and good governance principles of rent control, accountability, transparency, equality, participation and fairness. The notable hostel management problems found are indiscriminate rent increase, lack of transparency in billing and non-functional sub metres and non-refund of caution deposits by hostel managers, as well as violation of hostel rules, damage of hostel facilities and “selling of rooms” by hostel tenants.

This paper contends that youths have to be mainstreamed in the hostel management process with better platforms of advocating for affordable university students’ housing through rent control and other good governance practices in their hostel setting. It is hoped that the proposed efficient hostel management system and mainstreaming youth-led advocacy activities in affordable university students’ housing will go a long way to enhance students’ welfare and academic performance, help in rent control, fight against bribery and corruption and other governance problems.

Based on the main studies presented in the literature, this work aims to examine the level of student satisfaction towards the on-campus accommodation service provided by an Italian university. Notably, the objectives of the study are twofold: (1) to examine the mediating role of student satisfaction on the relationship between university on-campus accommodation service quality and word-of-mouth and (2) to determine whether there is any significant difference in students' satisfaction towards on-campus accommodation in terms of gender and the halls of residence.

The study is based on the results of a survey carried out through an online questionnaire by 381 students living on campus at the University of Urbino.

The findings revealed that the quality perceived by university students in relation to individual services had a positive impact on their general satisfaction towards the halls of residence experience.

The study presents some limitations such as lack of temporal comparisons, a focus on specific service quality items and the fact that it refers to a single Italian university.

The findings of this study will help the management of public universities to improve the quality of services in their halls of residence for the satisfaction of their students.

To the authors' knowledge, there have been no previous studies about on-campus accommodation service quality conducted in Italy. The study contributes to enrich the service quality literature, confirming both that the sum of the quality of individual elements is not as the overall satisfaction and the outcome intention of positive WOM depends not only on service quality attributes, but also from an overall evaluation of satisfaction.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the de/motivation variables in the delivery of housing microfinance (HMF) in the low-income housing market in Ghana.

The paper relied on a survey of 125 respondents of microfinance institutions (MFIs) to understand the interactions and effects of these variables on HMF delivery in Ghana. Descriptive and bivariate statistical methods were used to analyse the data.

The findings revealed that both internal and external variables motivate MFIs to engage in the low-income housing market. These variables are: MFIs desire for expansion, the potential size of the low-income housing market, the market potential for MFIs growth, the availability of local resources, unique features and products of the market, low-income housing offering an opportunity for leveraging resources and the preference for homeownership than rental among individuals in the low-income segment of the population. However, variables such as capital lock-up in HMF delivery, high-interest rates in the country, high cost and land prices, high cost and price of building materials, lack of sufficient collaterals and the different interest rates required on HMF loans also served as demotivation in the low-income housing market in Ghana.

The paper findings are limited in context to Ghana.

The paper, although limited to Ghana, contributes to the much-needed body of knowledge on low-income housing finance in developing countries.

The paper is the first of its kind in using empirical data to explore the motivational and demotivational variables in the delivery of HMF in a developing country context such as Ghana.

Student housing (SH) is very critical in the learning process of students, as it can affect their academic performance. It has been noted that tertiary institutions in Botswana are failing to provide adequate accommodation to cater the growing student population. Despite the shortage of housing, private property developers are not keen on participating in SH provision. The purpose of this study is to therefore assess the factors influencing minimum participation of property developers in SH provision in Gaborone, Botswana.

Data for this study was collected from both primary and secondary sources. Primary data was collected from property developers in Gaborone through the use of a questionnaire. Secondary data on the other hand was collected from books, reports and journal articles. Data was analysed by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences and Microsoft Excel.

The findings from the study revealed that the factors that affect property developers participation in SH provision are low income derived from SH, limitations in multi sectoral approach, poor site location, lack of partnerships between developers and universities, high maintenance and renovation costs and lack of policies and legislation regarding SH. The factors that highly had an impact on property developers are financial factors, followed by institutional factors, demographic factors, physical factors and, finally, human factors. A private–public partnerships model aimed at enhancing developers’ participation in SH provision was developed in the study.

The small sample size used has had a negative impact on the results, as no factors were identified as limiting property developers’ participation in SH.

This paper extends the knowledge on factors influencing property developers’ minimal participation in SH provision by coming up with a model that could enhance their participation in SH provision.

Although residential neighbourhoods are the largest and most resilient share of a city and the process of urban conservation and renewal is ongoing, methods to assess their values are limited. This paper presents the results of a systematic literature review, revealing the state of the art and its knowledge gaps with regard to methods for assessing values of architecture in residential neighbourhoods.

The systematic literature review is based on studies selected by a research protocol, using a digital database of peer-reviewed literature. A metanarrative approach is used to synthesise the qualitative data from reviewed articles. This review has two stages: (1) giving an overview of the field and (2) categorising research methods and disciplines.

The review revealed a wide variety of studies from different disciplines and deduced its key trends, titled as “storylines”, concerning the methods to assess significance, integrating a broader scope of values and different perspectives. In particular, the “storylines” outside traditional heritage disciplines offer methods to include more stakeholders, link value assessment to policy development or highlight heritage potential. Results reveal the diversity in concepts and strengthen the need for an interdisciplinary vocabulary on values and methods, enabling planners and policymakers to compare their results and help to create more attractive and resilient cities.

By reviewing and comparing the selected studies from a wider range of disciplines and research fields, this paper shares insights into the complementary characteristics of the different types of value research, outlining the added value of the different perspectives.

The purpose of this paper is to use multi-criteria decision-making methods to assess environmental quality of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.

Weights of criteria are determined by means of entropy weight method. VIKOR method is used to rank different OECD countries based on their environmental quality.

The results show the best and the worst environmental quality of different OECD countries. The top five countries of environmental quality are Spain, Israel, Belgium, Japan and the USA. These countries have the best quality of environment. By contrast, the worst five countries of environmental quality are Iceland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Chile.

The findings have implications regarding environmental quality. The results suggest that governments should engage in policy-making that improves their environmental quality. Specifically, those having poor quality of environment should protect the environment and reduce the negative impact on environment. For example, reduce emission of CO₂ to lessen the impact of climate change, improve the quality of air and water, reduce waste generation, increase biodiversity and enhance forest resources. Improvement of environmental quality will improve our social and economic life as well as health conditions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate empirically the effects of different dimensions of social capital on the well-being of farmers in China’s undeveloped poverty-stricken areas, and study the equivalent multiple of social capital and income compensation.

The paper opted for an exploratory study using the open-ended approach of grounded theory, including 1,176 interviews with rural households in poverty-stricken areas in China. The data were complemented by documentary analysis. Then an econometric model of social capital and farmers’ well-being was applied to the data.

The results show that the number frequently visiting relatives, reciprocity, participation and trust level are significantly positively related to the well-being of the farmers, and the level of participation in social capital requires the most income compensation, while the level of trust comes second.

This paper can serve as a template for developing a useful tool that can be fitted to national or regional data for studying the effects of social capital on the well-being of farmers in poor areas or countries and for calculating the concrete equivalent multiple of social capital and income compensation.