poverty neighbourhoods
Reframing Social Tectonics with the Sociology of Everyday Life: Insights from the Public Spaces of a Mixed Housing Neighbourhood
Social mix policies aim to integrate residents living in diverse forms of housing. While numerous studies have showcased the limitations of social mix in achieving this objective, explanations for this tendency remain incomplete. Accordingly, this qualitative case study adopts insights from the sociology of everyday life and interaction ritual theory to elaborate on academic understandings of (non)-interaction between disparate groups in mixed housing communities. It draws primarily from observational fieldwork and semi-structured interview data gathered in the public spaces of a transitioning mid-sized city in Ontario, Canada. The findings report how everyday encounters among and between the urban poor and wealthier residents (re)produce patterns of group solidarity and conflict. The continued application of micro-sociological perspectives to housing mix research can chronicle and perhaps mend the gaps between government housing policy objectives and the experiences of residents living within relevant legislative jurisdictions.
‘The Social Managers Are Back in Town’: the Challenges of Housing Management in a Residualised Public Housing Sector
The residualisation of social housing sectors requires housing managers to intensify social management activities aimed at promoting tenants’ wellbeing and social cohesion. This paper discusses the implementation of such activities in the Italian public housing sector. It juxtaposes the vision conceptualised at the policy level with the daily activities of housing managers in practice on the ground and highlights the gaps between policy goals and realities of tenants’ involvement. While social management activities are expected to contribute to breaking the vicious circle of financial, technical, and social decline that has long affected public housing estates, the short timeframe of the planned interventions raises the question of the potential for structural change.
The Challenges of the Redevelopment of Old and Dilapidated Buildings in Mumbai: A Policy Perspective
Affordable housing is the biggest challenge being faced by the city of Mumbai, which styles itself as an emerging Global Financial Centre. The city has the image of being home to a stark dualism, with slums abutting modern skyscrapers. Over the years, adequate policy attention has been given to slums and with the implementation of the Slum Rehabilitation Scheme slum dwellers are being provided with housing in multi-storey buildings and are being granted tenancy rights to the dwellings. However, an emerging area of concern is the large housing stock that is non-slum but is old and dilapidated. The collapse of an old and dilapidated building in Dongri in July 2019 that killed twelve people and the one at Bhendi Bazaar in 2017 that killed thirty-three has brought this problem into the mainstream and new policies have been initiated to address the problem. Implementing these policies seems to be a challenge, and this is the result of different factors. This article looks at the housing problem in Mumbai from a policy perspective and analyses the implementation challenges of the new policy aimed at redeveloping the old and dilapidated housing stock.
Kindred Campers: The Alternative Pre-Bridgeheader Migration Stage of Low-Income Migrants in Jakarta, Indonesia
The Government of Indonesia (GoI) has been facing problems in providing affordable houses for Indonesian low-income peoples. Research on the housing preferences of low-income people is important in order for the GoI to understand and be able to provide affordable housing that meets the needs of low-income people. According to Turner (1968a), the housing preferences of low-income migrants is largely influenced by economic factors, so Turner divides low-income migration into three stages: namely the bridgeheader, land consolidator, and status seeker. But the question arises as to whether it is possible for first time low-income migrants to arrive and live in the city centre directly, without any prior experience? If not, then is there a stage before the bridgeheader stage? If it is, then what are the first-housing preferences of low-income migrants? This paper critiques Turner’s theory of the low-income’s migration stage, that there is a possibility of stage before bridgeheader, we call it ‘kindred campers’.
The Ongoing Role of Family in the Provision of Housing in Greece during the Greek Crisis
The importance of the institution of family in housing practices has deep historical roots in Greece, and families tend to follow certain housing strategies such as late emancipation from the parental home, intergenerational house transfers and financial support for housing. Providing and maintaining a housing solution for young members is one of the top worries in this geographical region, and it is relieved via intergenerational micro-solidarities. Moreover, today’s crisis and austerity are threatening, through indirect budgetary cuts and rising taxation, the housing well-being of the citizenry which is supported only by family welfare. Nonetheless, the family still constitutes the main shock absorber of social and economic turbulence, but at what price?
Informal Practices in Housing Financialisation: The Transformation of an Allotment Garden in Hungary
Although financialization of housing is well known global concept, in our paper we attempt to present how financialization produces new spaces and household practises in a Central Eastern European semi-pheripheral context. We approach this framework through an anthropological investigation, the transformation of allotment gardens what we consider as a combination of social and spatial transformations after the 1990s. In our case study we are curious how different waves of financialization influence the formation of the transformation of an informal housing space and how informal practices of the households could be an agency against financialization.
‘They seemed like Super Businessmen’: Financial Instruments in Social Housing Policy
This article explores the trajectory of so-called guaranteed social housing in the Czech Republic as an example of penetrating financial instruments into the public policy realm. The project, promoted by the government’s Agency for Social Inclusion, was intended to encourage private landlords to rent their properties to people in need through commercial insurance against the risk of rent defaults. Using policy documents, media and interviews with governmental officers, the article describes the performative strength of financial instruments in the sphere traditionally occupied by the welfare state. In financialisation literature, the proliferation of financial instruments is often described as a one-way process in which these instruments colonise public domains. However, the empirical case discussed in the article shows that this process is much more complex and contingent, and financial instruments are not used as the best option but rather as a last resort in a situation marked by weak policies.
Independent Evaluation of Social Housing Operations: Challenges and Lessons to Be Learned
In recent years, the Evaluation Department of the Council of Europe Development Bank has conducted a series of independent evaluations of CEB-financed operations in the social housing sector targeting special vulnerable groups. Building on evaluation evidence and experience, two strategic issues are presented: the high level of complexity of such operations and the various facets of their sustainability. This paper underlines the significant learning and accountability potential of evaluations of social housing operations. At the same time, it underscores the added value of a holistic approach to evaluation, in the face of a simplistic, but currently predominant, output-oriented focus during monitoring.
