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There is a dearth of basic analysis about how the demographics of residents living in the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) subsidized properties relate to the quality of housing. This research vacuum is often filled by popular stereotypes. This study aims to address this gap by examining the relationship between the demographics of residents and inspection scores.

Two data sources are drawn from the analysis: the 2018 HUD Picture of Subsidized Households database and HUD’s 2018 REAC Public and Multi-Family Housing Inspection Scores. Linear and logistic regression analysis were conducted, and selected data were mapped using GIS software.

The analysis examines the demographics of site-based subsidized properties in relation to inspection scores. In 2018, HUD identified 31,225 traditional public housing and other site-based multi-family properties in its Picture of Subsidized Households database. Residents living in these properties are often stereotyped as a homogeneous group that is predominantly composed of single, minority women with children who are welfare dependent. Similarly, properties are often portrayed as dilapidated, high-rise projects in segregated urban communities. The results from the analysis do not support these stereotypes about HUD-subsidized multi-family properties. By contrast, the results indicate that a diverse group of households lives in HUD-subsidized multi-family properties.

There is a need for scholars, advocates and practitioners to more aggressively challenge the popular stereotypes about site-based subsidized housing. In particular, there is a need for enhanced public scholarship focused on the dissemination of evidence-based research.

Based on a case study of conversion of real estate complexes built in Turin at the time of the 2006 Winter Olympic Games into public and subsidized housing, the chapter compares policy goals aimed at producing social mix through the mixing of housing tenure, with actual outcomes and thus identifies possible advantages, challenges, and pitfalls of this kind of intervention.

The analysis is based on a survey and semi-structured interviews with residents, in-depth interviews with key actors, and observation of daily interactions in public and shared places.

Regeneration policies and tenure mix seem to be most effective at preventing neighborhood stigmatization and attract private investments in facility development (area-based effects), but not to be “automatically” a source of mixed social relations and positive role models able to limit socially disapproved behaviors (people-based effects).

The practical lesson which can be drawn from this chapter is that the achievement of people-based effects requires long-standing actions which go beyond the construction and allocation of new apartments.

The chapter engages critically with the idea that built environment has deterministic effects on social environment, and social mix resulted from regeneration and housing policies can work as a catch-all solution for activating and rehabilitating human and social resources in the target area. Specifically, we show how these processes require particular organizational and policy conditions that cannot be taken for granted.

The growth rate of the aging population raises the demand for and challenges of public and subsidized (P&S) housing for the elderly. The decline in elderly ability increases their dependence on the quality of facilities provided by their residential apartment. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to develop an integrated indoor built environment–quality of life model for the elderly in P&S housing estates.

A questionnaire survey, including scales for 4 quality of life (QoL) domains (physical health, psychological health, social relationships and overall QoL), and 13 indoor built environment (BE) components were identified. In total, 365 survey data were collected from the elderly in 18 political districts of Hong Kong, while reliability analysis, multiple regression analysis and structural equation modeling were adopted in the data analysis.

Based on the congruence of results of these statistical analyses, it was revealed that: furniture and fixtures predict all the four QoL domains of the elderly; lighting and color induce social relationships; and overall QoL is predicted by distance and handrails.

Several recommendations were made in accordance with the research results, such as review minimum spacing requirements to provide walking distance for elderly physical activity, investigate the micro-climate for appropriate building orientation, consider the changing body size of the elderly for supply of furniture, use warm colors with high levels of illumination, and so on.

This paper aims to examine the influence of physical housing environments on the learning potential of children. The authors argue for housing design which is attentive to the need for open but personal space with “sufficient physical partitions”.

The research draws on an empirical study of students in two randomly selected Hong Kong secondary schools. The approach includes the use of multiple regression analysis to test the correlation between academic performance and a set of environmental attributes.

Housing design, aspect and size of housing are significant. Academic performance is not dependent on tenure type and this is partly related to mixed tenure, close proximity of differing socio‐economic neighborhoods and the sharing of social capital to provide equal opportunity. However, densely developed high housing is not desirable for children's academic development.

The location of Hong Kong provides a very specific combination of small land mass, a history of high rise living and a social housing sector and the need to optimize physical space for social ends. Home ownership does not play a role of a stabilizer for children, as observed in other places.

This paper prompts a reassessment, by housing providers and commissioners, of the link between housing types and long term educational opportunities and the need to devise appropriate partnerships to ensure that housing adds to academic performance rather than undermine it.

The study of the effects of high rise high density housing on children's learning is underdeveloped and should be reassessed in markets, such as that in the UK, where use of the private rented sector is increasingly used to house families who may in the past have been housed directly by the State.

This research attempts to apply quantitative techniques to provide evidence to policy makers that can be replicated in other housing contexts.

The aging population is growing rapidly, causing significant increases in the demand for public housing. Normally, the elderly rely heavily on the facilities available in their living environment to maintain their quality of life (QoL). However, most public housing is not purposely designed for the elderly, and, thus, has inappropriate facilities, which often have a negative impact upon the physical and psychological health of residents. This paper aims to investigate the relationships between the indoor facilities management (FM) of public housing and the QoL of elderly persons.

Based on an extensive literature review, a questionnaire has been designed and distributed among elderly residents of different public housing buildings. To investigate the impact of indoor FM on the QoL of the senior residents in public housing, statistical analysis methods including reliability analysis and multiple regression modeling were adopted.

The study identified 12 indoor FM factors and six QoL domains (i.e. overall QoL, physical and psychological health, independence, social relationship and living environment). The results also reveal that space planning and bathroom influence most QoL domains, including overall QoL, physical/psychological health, independence and living environment of the elderly; electricity and noise mainly affect physical health and independence, while noise is negatively related to elderly QoL; and supporting facilities (including windows and doors, indoor decoration, non-slip floors and accessibility) have a positive impact on psychological health and social relationships.

Based on the current findings, several practical recommendations are made for the designers and facilities managers, including wide corridors for individuals with wheelchairs, the installation of single-lever-type mixers to provide a stable hot water supply and a window designed to get as much natural light as possible.

This paper provides a clear picture about elderly special requirements on indoor FM and their QoL. It can assist architects, engineers and facilities managers in public housing to understand elderly needs and improve FM during design and operation stages for enhancing QoL of elderly residents in public housing buildings.

Sustainable economic growth is a major policy target of many governments over the world; Hong Kong also has no exception after its sovereignty handover on 1^st July 1997. Hong Kong has also been inertly receiving more than one hundred Chinese immigrants every day for several decades which mainly serves the purpose of family reunion through One-way Permit scheme. There exists a public voice in relation to Chinese immigrants' intentions of migrating to Hong Kong; some people argued Chinese immigrants are not simply aimed to reunifying their family but purposely grasping public resources of Hong Kong; public resources include public healthcare benefits and subsidized public housing; such hidden motivation and immigrants' economic contribution are not theoretically mutually exclusive. This chapter summarizes literature in relation to various concerns about immigrants' contribution towards economic growth, also consolidates immigrants' survey results which regularly conducted by Hong Kong Home Affairs Department and Immigration Department, and utilized Hong Kong census and by-census datasets to empirically compare the return rates of schooling and work experience between Chinese immigrants and natives over the past forty years, and investigate the causality between Hong Kong economic growth rates and these two return rates.

Studies showed that policy influences housing provision. The review of these policies in the Southeast Asia's is possibly not yet adequate because of recent gap in housing demand-supply across the region. This review evaluates the state policy in low-cost housing (LCH) provision in Southeast Asian developing countries reported in published studies.

An electronic search (ScienceDirect, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar) was conducted using the following search terms: “Low-Cost Housing policy in Southeast Asia.” Reference list of identified studies was scanned to identify more studies. Studies published between 1991 and 2020 that focused either on the region or country within the region were selected. An independent reviewer extracted data from the studies using a standardised form and 27 studies were included in this review.

LCH developing countries experience, encumbrances and measures to mitigate LCH demand-supply gap in Southeast Asia were the issues addressed from the reviewed. Findings from the studies indicate that the level of lax state policy and enforcement of LCH varies across nations.

Findings and recommendations of this paper were based on systematically reviewed literature but does not compromise the robustness regarding state policy in low-cost housing provision in Southeast Asian developing countries. Thus, exploratory sequential mixed methods approach has been recommended as part of the implications for future research.

As part of the practical implications, this paper highlights the mechanism behind the success of Singapore LCH policy and transferability of the model to the developing countries within and outside the region, and open up the possibility to adopt these policies.

This study is probably the first systematic review on low-cost housing in Southeast Asia.

This paper aims to analyze the problematic relationship between the Left, the commercial revolution and the progressive growth of mass consumption during the Italian economic miracle.

Taking for example the city of Bologna, the most important city run by the Italian communist party, the paper problematizes the socio-economic and political – institutional processes connected with the emergence of “American-like” commercial and distribution strategies, and of consumerist identities.

Bologna’s administrators governed the commerce through a rationalization supported by urban planning, including the establishment of a chain of “associated supermarkets”, built on municipal areas and financed by a mixed-capital company set up for that purpose. At the same time, they sought to protect small retailers to gain their political consensus and to contain crisis-related anxieties among the consumers, a category which has still an uncertain identity in Italy.

Much remains to be seen in the characteristics of the Italian miracle, and in the manner it was ruled. The case of Bologna illuminates an important piece of the Italian Left’s attempt to interpret and to lead the modernization of the country.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the indoor environmental quality among residential buildings in dense urban living environment, after the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which called for a review on the relationship between health issues and the authors' built facilities.

Environmental tests include thermal comfort, noise, daylight and air quality inside the residence of typical housing units were carried out. Based on inferences drawn from test results, the paper developed systematic conclusions.

It was observed that most of the occupants (over 70 per cent of 125 households) were tolerating the higher air temperature and dimmer daylight inside their residence, which was proven to fall behind Hong Kong Standard. On the contrary, people reflected that they were also trying to abate noise and dust concentration in their daily life.

Owing to the flat occupants' exclusive property rights in law, there were limited access to the residents' flats and only 32 occupants out of 125 allowed us to conduct the survey. Yet, the data set was justified.

The results provides practical guidance for the design of future housing to enhance health and comfort of occupants.

Originality of the findings is based on on‐site data collected in dense urban housing condition. Rating data were also collected from the occupants concerned about their habituation conditions in Hong Kong after the outbreak of SARS, which was a major crisis that called for fundamental review of the authors' built facilities.