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High rates of urbanization have concentrated housing needs in urban areas. This has resulted in a large‐scale housing and service backlog. The rapid growth in housing demand represents a mammoth task for both the present and future housing policy in South Africa. Local government in an effort to address this challenge has placed a high premium on informal settlement formalization and mixed‐income housing development. The rationale behind these two approaches is to address urban poverty, segregation and redevelopment. The purpose of this paper is to appraise mixed‐income housing development with the objective of integration along racial and social grounds and to denounce the negative perception that the poor and rich cannot live side by side, as well as to provide evidence‐based public‐private partnership (PPP) in development.

The investigation will be based on primary and secondary data with great emphasis on the analysis of the findings of Shift, an NGO, in reviewing the success and challenges of mixed‐income housing development. Both published and unpublished literatures were used equally in the study, as well as focus group discussion and interviews with the beneficiaries as well as the principal developers and City of Johannesburg representatives. These findings will be contextualized to Cosmo City in Johannesburg because this happens to be one of the municipalities with a high rate of migration and attendant housing shortage.

Integration of the poor into the urban system is achievable with effective and efficient PPP. This investigation also finds that the mixed‐income housing development can lead to an inclusive city and bring about change in the paradigm of criminalization of the poor as being not suitable to live side by side with the rich. Poverty and marginalization can be addressed through carefully planned housing typology.

For mixed‐income housing development to be successful and sustainable, this paper shows there is a need for interactive participation of the end user or beneficiaries. Integration along social and racial lines can be achieved through appropriate housing typology. There is a need for inter‐sectoral collaboration and partnership between the public and private sectors in addressing informal settlement challenge and urban poverty in developing countries.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the development of the Brightwalk community in Charlotte, North Carolina, to explore some of the tradeoffs municipalities make when engaging in public–private partnerships designed to support the production of mixed-income housing in urban neighborhoods.

The results of a gray literature review and a series of in-depth interviews conducted with real estate practitioners familiar with the transaction are presented to evaluate the impact of market forces on key investment decisions and project outcomes.

Public–private partnerships formed to support mixed-income housing development can serve as an effective means of revitalizing economically stagnant urban areas and improving the quality of the affordable housing stock, but they do not always provide members of the development team with an equally strong incentive to satisfy the unique demands of low-income populations or ensure they have a seat at the table when development decisions are made.

The originality of the research lies in its focus on a public–private partnership led by a non-profit organization to facilitate the redevelopment of a dilapidated market-rate apartment complex into a revitalized mixed-income community, which may help municipalities evaluate the pros and cons of participating in similar development transactions.

The purpose of this paper aims to explore the reports of housing shortages in post‐Katrina New Orleans especially for low‐income residents in the face of a returning working poor population. Despite the availability of housing vouchers by the New Orleans Housing Authority to any previous residents of New Orleans housing projects, a political uproar has claimed no homes are available and that destroying the previously failing New Orleans housing projects would amount to “forced homelessness.”

The analysis is done by reflecting on different commentary from persons claiming the housing projects must be preserved while also exploring the failed goals of the same public institutions. Further, a brief overview of the housing situation regarding availability of homes is conducted.

The findings show that the poor of New Orleans are being misled about available housing, and there is a continuing process of decline in sovereignty of local public policy makers. Politicians benefit by elevating their public persona.

The paper explores the political benefactors of perpetuating falsehoods in order to make political gains.

This paper aims to compute total factor productivity (TFP) growth for India as well as for its 19 major states and to explore the determinants of TFP at the state level by considering the spillover effects.

TFP growth has been obtained using growth accounting equation. Further, the TFP growth estimates were used to derive TFP levels using the translog index procedure. Given the policy focus on building infrastructure and expanding financial access, we have estimated the impact of irrigation, electricity, road, health, education and financial depth on TFP using the Spatial Durbin Model to account for spillover effects.

Computing TFP growth for two sub periods, namely, 2001-2008 and 2009-2015, the study finds a deterioration in TFP growth for India as well as for 10 of the 19 states under study in the post global financial crisis period. The author find that TFP is positively impacted by irrigation, health and road infrastructure. While financial depth and education were statistically insignificant, installed capacity of electricity had a negative impact on state level TFP.

'The author provides rationale for the empirical findings considering the country context. The findings of this study act as pointers for shaping higher growth on a sustained basis in India. The study helps to assess the productivity growth in the new states, namely, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand, that were carved out in 2000 vis a vis their parent states. This assessment is useful especially for the states of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh which were created to address economic backwardness in certain pockets of the parent states.

First, it provides TFPG estimates for India as well as 19 major states during the 2000-2015 period. Second, this study helps to understand how TFPG for India as well as each of the 19 states have behaved in the post global financial crisis period. Third, the study helps to assess the productivity growth in the three newly created states in 2000 vis a vis their parent states. Fourth, this is the first attempt which considers the spatial interdependence among the states to estimate the impact of financial and infrastructural development on productivity in the Indian states.

The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of business and marketing strategies pursued by responsible property developers, funds and investors in the USA and to draw conclusions for future activities in that sector from a transatlantic perspective.

Personal interviews are conducted with 42 developers, fund providers and managers, institutional, nonprofit and major private investors representing more than US$60 billion of responsible property assets under management. The data are complemented by an analysis of promotional documents. A cluster analysis is performed to classify the strategies of the participating companies and institutions and to explore any commonalities and differences.

Business and marketing strategies in responsible property investment (RPI) can be described and characterised within the three dimensions of location, building and people. RPI activities and investors in the USA usually transcend pure green building and aim to contribute significantly to smart growth, to sustainable urban development and revitalization.

The results in this study are not fully representative of the US RPI community, with the study focussing on the core network of developers, real estate funds and large investors. Furthermore, issues of corporate governance and financial performance are omitted from this study. Interviews are conducted in autumn 2008, i.e. at a time when the major financial crisis reached a global scale, potentially influencing participants' perspectives and subsequent responses.

The findings may help RPI practitioners reflect on business and marketing strategies. European developers, real estate funds and investors can benefit in many respects from US experiences.

The research approach, applied to RPI focussing on business and marketing strategies for the first time, provides new insights for practitioners on both sides of the Atlantic. Above all, the findings may initiate further research to deepen the understanding of the RPI business.

East Lake Commons is a 67 home mixed-use, mixed-income in-fill community in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The community planning process began in 1997, and construction was substantially complete by 2000. East Lake Commons successfully incorporates a wide range of ecological and social concepts, including those of Atlanta Regional Commission and the US Environmental Protection Agency. In addition, the project has established new practices such as Handicap Visitability that is influencing national policy makers.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the impact of urban design master plan projects in the Australian context of Brisbane. It first reviewed the general ramifications of urban design projects on property markets. The local impacts of two major projects were then analysed and compared. A limited statistical analysis was conducted to investigate whether local price growth could be attributed to the projects or resulted from generally buoyant market conditions.

The paper adopted a largely descriptive approach. It first reviewed the theoretical outcomes urban design projects should deliver. It then looked at the specific details of two distinct urban design projects in Brisbane and descriptively assessed their impact on adjacent local housing markets. It then compared relative aggregated location price growth to isolate discernable project price effects. Finally, the paper anecdotally selected some master designed properties and considered whether their prices were excessive compared to average location rents.

The paper found conflicting evidence to support the view that urban design projects significantly lifted aggregated location prices. On the one hand, aggregated project location price growth was relatively muted. Other generic demand factors and local differences in housing stock quality swamped project effects. On the other hand, at the individual property level, there was some anecdotal evidence to suggest premiums were paid for urban designed homes. The paper indirectly suggests, then, that any price impacts of urban design projects are subject to rapid distance decay.

The paper conducted only a limited historical review of revitalisation and urban design. A systematic individual, project‐adjacent, property price analysis was not conducted. Rather, the aggregated dwelling price analysis and anecdotal rental review suggested, albeit inconclusively, that the effects of urban design are spatially restricted to the immediate vicinity of projects.

Investors should note likely price impact of planned infrastructure projects is spatially restricted to the immediate environs of the project.

The paper combines an overview of urban design and property market analysis.

This study aims to investigate whether the correlation between Saudi Arabia’s social and economic reforms, urban megaprojects and sustainable urbanism can lead to an increased quality of life (QoL) in the capital, create a comprehensive lifestyle setup for Riyadh’s residents while also aiming to attract foreign investment.

This research examines five government-sponsored mega-destinations and their master plans against the objectives of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030’s Quality of Life Program. Furthermore, the author analyzed to what extent the proposed projects fulfill global mandates of sustainable urban development and how they might help raise the QoL for Riyadh’s residents. The author’s methodology rests primarily on detailed policy evaluation proposed by Vision 2030, literature research and data collected from proposed urban development plans. In parallel, the author conducted informal conversations with people living in affected areas and architectural offices who are involved in the design of the five megaprojects. After collecting the data for each project, the author compared the QoL Program criteria to the data of the proposed megaprojects to examine to what extent the proposed designs implement the QoL criteria of Vision 2030. In the last step, the author evaluated whether and how the proposed plans adhere to globally established guidelines of sustainable urban revitalization by studying possible overlaps and contingencies on an urban level.

The analysis reveals that although each case study project targets one or more specific lifestyle domains, the projects combined fulfill all lifestyle categories specified in Saudi Arabia’s QoL program. In addition, each project contributes measures to improve livability in the categories of urban design and environment, infrastructure and transport, social engagement and safety while also providing a range of economic and educational opportunities for different demographics. In terms of sustainable development criteria, the analysis demonstrates that all case studies provide ample measures to enhance Riyadh’s mobility by providing greenways for pedestrians and cyclists, which connect to public transport. Furthermore, when strategically combined as a series of urban layers, the projects demonstrate potential to form urban synergies among different lifestyle domains that could positively affect existing and proposed neighborhoods, particularly when extended through an inclusive, participatory planning framework, which, in turn, could significantly raise the QoL for a broad socioeconomic demographic.

This research reveals the complex role of megaprojects as change agents for socioeconomic reforms, as signifiers of livability and as planning frameworks to implement sustainable urbanism in Saudi Arabia’s capital, while also creating a lifestyle infrastructure for Riyadh’s residents.

With their sensitive approach to climate, ecologically driven landscape projects and regionalist architecture inspired by the traditional Arab city, these case study projects may serve as an example to other countries in hot arid zones on sustainably revitalizing their urban environments.

This study demonstrates how social and economic reforms intertwine with sustainable urban planning and placemaking to create a comprehensive lifestyle setup for Riyadh’s residents that has not previously existed. On the planning side, this includes creating a massive public infrastructure that encourages walkability and residents’ active participation in recreational, cultural, entertainment and sports activities. However, as the analysis has also revealed, while offering a large number of public facilities, the projects do not embrace a mixed-income project model, which would allow low-income families to live within a market-rate environment. In addition, one of the projects entails the displacement of benefit low-income and migrant communities. Although the government has a separate program that specifically aims at providing affordable housing in other areas of the city, these model destinations primarily target luxury tourists and affluent Saudis, potentially cementing existing socio-spatial divides in the city. Consequently, the megaprojects demonstrate Saudi Arabia’s conflicted response to the logic of entrepreneurial neoliberalism: on the one side, progressive attempts to promote an egalitarian approach to urban livability; on the other, strategic efforts to use megaprojects as spectacular showcases in the global marketplace.

The correlation between Saudi Arabia’s socioeconomic reforms, megaprojects and sustainable urbanism in Riyadh has not been previously explored. Compared to Western countries’ cities, few attempts have been made to investigate the role of livability in the context of emerging countries’ fast-growing urban areas. This paper presents a considerable case study in Saudi Arabia that ties into a more extensive debate on cultural globalization where cities, particularly in the developing world, use megaprojects as change agents to reconstruct their urban territories according to standardized livability indices to elevate their image in the global marketplace.

The growing alienation of modernist public housing estates and their ethnically and socially excluded residents, as well as the neglected human potential-capital they symbolize (not social burden), is a grotesque expression of the failure of a system driven by the profit motive and failed housing, planning and social policy, rather than by the requirement to satisfy sustainable urbanism and dignified and just housing for all. The modernist concept of architecture & urban planning, which emerged in response to a very particular set of regional circumstance, spread throughout the world in the 20th century. The result, where the idea was simplistically accepted, had disastrous consequences. The postmodernist approach on the other hand has given up altogether on the social agenda of architecture and housing. Paying particular attention to housing, this paper discusses the contrasting results of modernist and –or post modernist planning approaches in housing and its consequences. It also looks at the rather recent Sustainable Urbanism paradigm and the possibility that it might offer as an alternative or a new complement to housing planning and design; this in contrast to the modernist satellite-suburban generic type of living in most major European cities as well as in the developing countries. The study is based on multiple methods which include, descriptive and exploratory qualitative approach (observation, introspection, analysis and deduction), as well as Futurescape Method of selected cases in the American Housing Program HOPE VI, and from ethnographic survey of an ongoing large scale housing program in Ethiopia known as Integrated Housing Development Program (IHDP).

As is the case internationally, there is also an increased focus on urban space diversity in South Africa. Is it appropriate to pursue place diversity in South Africa? If so, what are the design factors that support place diversity and can these be accommodated by the development of medium density mixed housing in the country? Furthermore, could these emerging trends be considered as part of a larger global trend moving towards greater place diversity in cities, or does it only offer local fragments and practices of fashionable international ideas? This paper explores the multiple meanings of place diversity in the country as evident in the development of medium density mixed housing developments and highlights a number of paradoxes that emerge as a result of the context-specific realities.