Housing, as the principal focus of personal and family life, has a pervasive impact on all aspects of our existence, providing privacy and security, both physical and emotional, while embodying not only our material possessions, but also our dreams and despair. For most households in developing countries, financing housing constitutes a substantial proportion of household expenditure. Most research on housing finance focuses on measures of affordability and establishment of formal institutions. Others restrict their field of inquiry to the implementation of micro-credit facilities for incremental housing by lower income groups. Due to successive failures of public housing in many developing countries, strategies advocated by the global community tend towards diverting State involvement from provision to facilitation effective regulatory mechanisms deemed essential to enable private enterprise and informal practices in housing provision. Maldives experienced rapid economic growth during the last decades propelled by the expansion of tourism Yet, economic and social disparities between the capital, Male, and other islands continue to exist Consequently, in-migration to Male has fuelled an insatiable demand for housing. In the absence of formal housing finance, plot-holders in Male cannot construct multi storey housing that optimised land scarcity. This research focuses on the process by which private developers rent land from plot-holders to construct multi-storey rental housing, resulting in: income and shelter security for plot-holders increase in housing stock of Male and accumulation of capital for developers, with minimal State involvement or institutional support. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from renters, plot-holders and developers through purposive sampling. Based on the ideological perspective of rational choice theory, grounded theory methodology was utilised to develop a substantive theory on housing finance that. in situations of absolute scarcity of land, and low levels of institutional support, the decisions of private developers in the process of multi-storey rental housing production appear within the paradigm of rational utility maximisation. However, deeper analyses of their motives reveal elements of altruism, benevolence and charity dominating their decisions within the socio-cultural milieu of Male where kith and kin relationships influence investment decisions.

From the 1990s, market-oriented housing renewal took off at extraordinary pace across Chinese cities, modernising the built environment and displacing millions of residents in the process. One prevailing view is that this has been driven by a "growth coalition" of local government and private businesses with the goal of maximising economic potentials through the intensification of land-use. This thesis examines the evolving policies and practices of urban housing renewal in Shanghai since 1990. It questions whether the above perspective adequately captures the underlying socio-political dynamics at work. Through a comprehensive review of housing policies, interviews and analyses of contrasting case studies, it demonstrates that housing renewal had entailed a more diverse set of policies and mechanisms than commonly depicted. Beyond private-funded redevelopment and displacement, local governments have promoted some socially-oriented schemes, as well as recently supporting the piecemeal gentrification of neighbourhoods. This research shows that it is useful to move beyond a monolithic conception of the Chinese growth coalition. The local government plays an increasingly dualistic role in housing renewal. Beyond its core concern to facilitate economic growth and 'global city' building through comprehensive redevelopment, it has evolved socially- oriented housing policies, enlarged market regulation, and made concessions to disadvantaged groups in the interest of maintaining social harmony. Property developers were not a homogenous profit-seeking group in Shanghai's urban growth-coalition. Various quasi-governmental enterprises played a role in delivering socially-oriented projects under bureaucratic command of the local government. Finally, although grass roots actors are politically excluded, their cumulative actions including neighbourhood rehabilitation and protests can sometimes influence policies and urban planning decisions.

This thesis investigates issues of home ownership, life satisfaction and criminal activity and their relationship to each other. Drawing from the body of economic theory and econometric techniques, currently available, it explores the extent to which these topics, significant concerns for society, and individuals within society, can be examined. A variety of statistical techniques, from a range of disciplines, alongside contributions from alternative literatures, are utilised to discuss the subject. Four empirical chapters, connected to the areas above, consider recent publications, and offer distinct approaches to investigating the subject. Chapter one considers the importance of housing tenure and quality in terms of life satisfaction. Central to the argument is the view of Dietz and Haurin (2003), supported by a range of disciplines, that the individual life satisfaction benefits enjoyed by homeowners are attached to the pride and self-efficacy derived from becoming owners, and that these gains are directly connected to housing quality concerns. This chapter reports on analysis made through the use of a fuzzy measure of housing quality within a Mundlak corrected panel ordered probit. Results suggest that including a control variable for housing concerns mitigates the relative life satisfaction gains enjoyed bV homeowners. Chapter two builds on the analysis presented, by examining the importance of homeownership and its relationship to fear of crime. van Praag, and Ferrer-i-Carbonell (2008) demonstrate a novel approach to modelling ordered dependent variables which allows for a multi-level linear approach with instrumented variables, referred to as probit adapted ordinary least squares (POLS). This cross sectional approach identified the significance of individual crimes and fear as a whole in determining life satisfaction. Chapter three draws upon recently published work by Cook and Winfield (2013) to model convergence levels with previously unconsidered data and with a focus on the importance of the urban rural divide in criminal activity. With use of Beta and Sigma convergence findings suggested that, in the US, smaller counties experienced less convergence, and that the level of disaggregation was important for viewing the emergence of a national crime trend. Chapter four expands on the notion of disaggregation by investigating the presence of the motivation and opportunity effects between crime and economic conditions, recently identified by Cook and Watson (2013). The chapter draws upon the works of Phillips and Land (2013) whilst expanding the data sets used and offering additional empirical approaches. The repurposing of the Pesaran and Timmermann (1992) test of forecast accuracy is used, together with additional cross section and time series approaches, in order to test the relationship originally proposed by Cantor and land (1985). Results find that viewing state and county level disaggregated data offered a relationship in contrast to those found by national research.

The thesis examines the implications of the use of private finance for housing associations providing new social housing in three countries. The thesis reviewed literature relating to the adoption of private sector principles and financialisation, the use of economic and social regulation, consolidation arising from private finance and ethical issues for housing associations using private finance. From the literature review, four hypotheses were formulated which were used in the subsequent interviews with the chosen stakeholders in the three countries. Semi-structured interviews were used by the author as part of the research with senior people working within housing associations, financial institutions and Government bodies responsible for housing associations in Ireland, Wales and the Netherlands. The findings concluded that the use of private finance led to the adoption of private sector principles by housing associations, economic regulation was dominant over social regulation, consolidation in the housing association sectors did not solely arise from the use of private finance, but that there was not a transformation in the ethos and values of housing associations from the use of private finance. In addition, assessment of risk and the need for a co-ordinated policy framework in the private financing of housing associations were found to be essential for housing associations accessing private finance. The thesis concluded that the adoption of a process of managed financialisation with independent regulation for housing associations accessing private finance will lead to better outcomes.

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This thesis discusses the computer databases and Geographic Information Systems (G IS) as political technologies in the reconstruction of Nahr el Bared, a Palestinian Refugee Camp in North Lebanon. The camp has been completely destroyed in 2007 and needed to be rebuilt from scratch. One of the biggest challenges that this involved was the fact that no one has ever documented the spatial syntax of the camp. The lack of archival records has dearly demonstrated the critical significance of social and geographic data for political claimmaking under conditions of statelessness and un-belonging. In Nahr el Bared they became the primary means for negotiating the material and political foundations upon which the camp could be rebuilt. Mapping and collecting information on Nahr el Bared required much more than documenting lost property and assets. It confronted the refugees with a temporal paradox that required them to insist on the their status as temporary residents, so as to not compromise their right to return to Palestine, while at the same time demanding recognition for their historical place and achievements after 60 years of exile in Lebanon. In the analysis of my fieldwork I focus on the question how the database and collaborative mapmaking tools mediate, challenge and transform the ways in which authorship and ownership of space is enacted, validated and accounted for. In my concluding argument I make the case, that information rights provide a critical platform for the deliberation of 'expressive sovereignties' that can significantly strengthen the position of refugees in defending their interests against logics of enclosure that underpin military humanitarian agendas and the idea of the state. The rea l time logic of information processing procedures, I suggest, provide powerful zones of 'temporary autonomy' that escape lines of inclination instituted by colonial archives and the linear horizon of seriality.

This research is intended to examine the institutional structure of the Malaysian residential development industry with a specific focus on the nature of interaction between developers and the state. On this basis, this thesis aims to examine the institutional role of developers and their interaction with the state to improve the housing delivery system. Ball’s (1998;1986) Structure of Provision theory (SoP) and Wong and Madden’s (2000) North West Housing Assessment model were adapted to explore developers’ views and aspirations in various aspects of the residential industry in Malaysia. Case study research with extreme case scenarios were carried out in Kuala Lumpur and Johor to ascertain robust findings to contrast and compare. The institution of the Malaysian residential development industry is severely plagued with a high level of bureaucracy, a multiplicity of approving agencies and tight planning legislations. These are the main impediments to a responsive housing delivery system. In addition, research findings indicate inherent tensions in the interaction between developers and the state which is caused by the weak influence of developers in shaping government policy. There was evidence of an informal culture, particularly extensive relationship building between developers and the state and in their application for planning permission. In some extreme cases, there was some evidence of malpractice. The state, professionals and homebuyers are found to be in tension and conflict with developers. Developers are seen to be extremely profit-driven to the extent of flouting the regulations which they claim to be excessive and outmoded. The Malaysian residential industry has weak institutional capacity as it is characterised by a lack of trust and suspicion between developers and the state, and between developers and professionals. Hence, this thesis attempts to address the hindrances to effective implementation of legislative frameworks and to propose ways to overcome the present weaknesses. It also identifies some future directions for similar research to be carried out in Malaysia.

A market-oriented housing reform has been operated in China for more than ten years and the pace of construction and property-led redevelopment that were triggered by the rapid economic development have been accelerated by the reinforced market-led real estate development. However, this approach has had significant effects on the poor households who mostly live in impoverished neighbourhoods that are the prime targets of redevelopment. This thesis has sought to identify a method that can better understand and evaluate the impacts of housing-related interventions on the livelihoods of poor households in cities. This thesis has presented a very first attempt to apply the Sustainable Livelihood Approach to the study of housing-related issues in urban China, starting from a municipal housing neighbourhood – Shanghai Lane in the city of Wuhan. In a different manner to the Chinese top-down approach that usually focuses on quantitative data on a large scale to study outcomes of housing-related interventions, this thesis has conducted a holistic, context specific and in-depth livelihood analysis in the Shanghai Lane neighbourhhood, using the Sustainable Livelihood Framework (SLF) developed on the basis of DFID‘s model in the urban context a incorporating rights-based perspective. The investigation is around the vulnerability context occupants live in, their livelihood ownership, the strategies they have taken and the outcomes they have achieved. Additionally, this thesis has assessed the factor of power within SLF, from two perspectives: individual agency and power, and the structure of local governance and operation. The majority of data were generated by 76 face to face questionnaire surveys and 16 in-depth household interviews, with triangulation with secondary data, key informants interviews, and participatory observations. This thesis found that the tenure choice of poor households was an outcome of their livelihood strategies based on their limited assets ownership. To stay in the existing dwellings in Shanghai Lane contributed to both the income-generating and expenses-reducing strategies of poor households and maximizes their assets ownership. Their efforts to extend their living space and services enhanced their assets ownership, reduced their vulnerability in the short term, and gave support to their priorities in the medium term and led towards better livelihood outcomes in the long term. In sum, this thesis suggests that policy makers should adopt the SLA as a common principle in housing-related interventions, which put poor people in the centre and assess the effects of any intervention on their livelihoods from a holistic view, incorporating a rights-based perspective. This thesis urges policy makers to employ SLF to reassess the costs and effects of rehabilitation of impoverished neighbourhoods and suggests upgrading as the main approach to replace the universal tendency of eviction and redevelopment. However, this pro-poor and bottom-up approach requires a series of reforms from national to local level and, in practice, the Community Committee and social planners at grassroots level play a crucial role in determining the outputs of projects. The methodology and indicators developed in this thesis have provided a platform for the broader use of SLA in housing related study in urban China.

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No description available.