Classifying Housing Regimes. Is it Worth Doing? What are the Alternatives?

Comparative housing research is hindered by attempts to provide broad empirical categorisations of types of Housing Regimes and their equivalents and sweeping cross-country generalisations about their effects. Regime theory is right to recognise the housing provision is and can be organised in different ways but proselytises too strongly. Real issues and policy debates in countries are instead embedded in the existence of specific, tenure related, networks of housing provision and they widely differ across the world. Taking that on board can lead to more fruitful understandings.