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This article examines the lasting impact of architects Karl Linn and John Turner on community development and informal settlements. Grounded in the barn raising tradition, their distinct yet converging paths highlight the power of community participation, collaboration, and self-help in marginalized neighborhoods. Linn's Neighborhood Commons projects and Turner's ideas on self-help housing and user-centered design have influenced participatory practices, challenged institutional norms, and prioritized a process over product approach in today's complex urban landscapes. This exploration underscores the profound impact of their work on neighborhood improvement and inclusive urban environments.

Mexico's housing policies and institutions have focused on increasing the housing supply over the past 50 years. Despite this, most of the population has been unable to afford it and has been forced to fend for themselves through self-construction in socially produced neighborhoods. This research compares the difference between inhabiting a "turn-key" house provided by the state and a self-constructed house through the lens of appropriation and its effects on identity and place attachment that evidence the co-constitutive nature of the house/resident dynamic. As case studies, thirty houses were analyzed in six neighborhoods, three state-financed and three socially produced. The empirical data collected through the qualitative study was structured through the development of a theoretical model called "dwelling by appropriation" that attempts to describe the practices surrounding the appropriation of the home. The research found that individuals who construct their own homes are prouder of them, more satisfied with them, have a higher sense of self-esteem and self-efficacy, and are more trusting of their neighbors as they are in control of critical decisions regarding their living environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article demonstrates how two different, but related processes converge in the Ciudad Kennedy neighbourhood, built by the Instituto de Credito Territorial (ICT) on the outskirts of Bogotá, the capital of Colombia, at the beginning of the 1960s. The ICT, the Colombian state agency responsible for building low-income housing, sought various means of addressing a housing crisis that had been exacerbated since the 1950s by significant rural migration into the country's urban centres. In this context, the ICT collaborated closely with the Inter-American Housing and Planning Center (CINVA). In tandem, the U.S. government approved budgeting for the programme Alliance for Progress. This programme for foreign aid and regional cooperation cemented the U.S. effort to consolidate its influence in Latin America as part of its Cold War geostrategy. Housing being one of the Alliance's primary means of achieving its goals, Ciudad Kennedy represented the measure by which the success of American foreign policy in Latin America could be assessed. By considering housing produced by the ICT in Colombia as a geopolitical tool in the 1960s, Ciudad Kennedy illustrates how the U.S. enhanced its relationships with Latin America through U.S. technicians and foreign aid programmes, such as the Alliance for Progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informal settlement is a spatial manifestation of inequality, in that people turn to informal solutions for housing when formal ones are out of reach, usually because of financial constraints but also other factors such as social exclusion. However very little is known about the architectural and urban forms that constitute informal settlements, and thus how this inequality manifests spatially, and what specifically is inadequate in these settlements is not currently well understood. We use the framework of the United Nations Right to Adequate Housing as a benchmark to determine whether housing is contributing to inequality through one or more failures of adequacy, in which case we define these as being inequitable housing. We analyse the architecture of four cases within three informal settlements in Ahmedabad, Gujarat state, India, to examine how these urban forms both reflect and/or remedy multi-scalar urban housing inequalities. Four key physical spaces are found to be important: the dwelling's site, resident's control over dwelling design and construction, the design of the dwelling threshold, and the characteristics of shared open spaces. In the right combination, the quality of these physical spaces in informal settlements can contribute to informal settlement residents achieving housing adequacy. A better understanding of the built environment of informal settlements can enable designers and planners to harness the potential of informal settlement environments that are assets of the urban poor, create a context that stops informal settlements becoming 'slum-like' and help construct pathways towards urban equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neighbourhood social cohesion is important for the health and well-being of the ageing population. It is therefore crucial to study how we can create neighbourhoods with high levels of neighbourhood social cohesion where senior citizens can age in place. We test the hypotheses that collective self-build is positively related to social cohesion and (directly and indirectly) to social satisfaction and lower levels of loneliness. The study is based on survey data from 326 respondents of 50 years and over living in 25 collective self-build development projects and 19 conventionally developed housing projects in the Netherlands. The results of a structural equation model (SEM) reveal that collective self-build is directly related to neighbourhood social cohesion and lower feelings of social loneliness. We find an indirect effect on social satisfaction. These positive relationships hold while controlling for personal and household characteristics. This quantitative study adds scientific knowledge on the collective self-build development method and its relation to social cohesion, loneliness and satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: The purpose of this study was to analyze the effect of discipline directly on program policy implementation and indirectly through work effectiveness and teamwork. This research is causality research with a quantitative approach, conducted at the Housing and Settlement Area Office of Wajo Regency. Material and method: The population of 105 includes all employees, sampling using total sampling so that the entire population becomes the research sample. Data analysis using path analysis. The results showed that directly the variables of discipline, work effectiveness and teamwork had a positive and significant effect on the implementation of program policies. Statistics and Result: Work effectiveness has a positive and significant effect on program policy implementation and teamwork has a positive and significant effect on program policy implementation. Indirectly, work effectiveness and teamwork as medias variables that can positively and significantly influence discipline on program policy implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Privately organized collective housing is currently included in agendas for sustainable urban development in a range of European cities as a resource-efficient form of housing that prevents isolation and contributes to social cohesion within urban communities. However, research has shown that the recent surge of different forms of private-collective housing in Berlin could be a driver of gentrification and segregation. This article aims to uncover potential causes of the discrepancies between the ideological, and at times utopian, motivations underpinning self-build housing projects in the former East Berlin district Prenzlauer Berg, and their actual outcomes. I do so by analysing the literary (counter) discourse on self-build groups developed in Anke Stelling's novels Bodentiefe Fenster [ Floor-Length Windows ] (2015) and Schäfchen im Trockenen (2018, published in English translation as Higher Ground in 2021). I show that the realization of socially progressive, or even utopian, plans for urban private-collective housing prove difficult, and sometimes impossible, for the characters in the novels, due to the influence of other societal structures such as gender and class inequalities, urban segregation and gentrification, discrimination and the neoliberal logic of individual competition and consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In South Africa, the state provides low-income housing through subsidies to construct starter homes; however, the effort is insufficient to meet the country's housing demand. Another form of public or subsidised housing provision is the self-help housing model. The extent of the impact of the self-help model is not well reported. To close this gap, this article reports on a study expedited to assess whether the self-help housing model could be revitalised to curb the proliferation of informal settlements, especially in the central region of South Africa. The qualitative research aimed to suggest strategies to increase the use of the self-help housing model in the region. The qualitative (textual) data were collected through semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions before they were subjected to thematic analysis. The study revealed that challenges encumber the self-help model of housing delivery, although the beneficiaries prefer it because of their involvement in the projects, which leads to bigger units and user satisfaction. The study concludes that the self-help housing policy used in South Africa requires revision to increase the scale of implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing literature on self-building suggests classic state-socialism restricted the practice and it expanded only during the disintegration of the regime. The current article challenges this, to date empirically little supported, statement by estimating the extent of the practice in Hungary between 1921 and 2013 with the help of historical sources on housing construction and housing statistics. Contradicting earlier assumptions, data suggest self-build remained relatively stable throughout the twentieth century, was affected positively rather than negatively by the introduction of state-socialism, but there is no evidence of its substantial expansion during the disintegration process. The comparison of Hungarian data with evidence from countries across the world indicates that based on the time of the decline of the practice, a division among countries can be identified by the three tiers of the world-economy defined by Wallerstein: the core, the semiperiphery and the periphery. Hungary seems to have followed the semiperipheral course of development regardless of its state-socialist past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-help housing has been proposed as a solution to provide qualitatively adequate and affordable housing not only nowadays, but also during the late state socialism in the 1970s and 1980s in the former Czechoslovakia. In this article, we focus on how the self-help housing provision was during that era linked with the responsibilisation of households, a technique of governance usually associated with neoliberal regimes. On the case of self-help housing construction in town Myjava, which was supported by local authorities and initiated by local company eager to attract workers, we show then eventually main burden for management and risks steaming from the construction was carried by the individuals and their (extended) families. Seemingly the ideological contradiction of this individualistic solution was resolved through rigorous standardization of construction projects, which enabled to maintain a self-help housing as one of the regime’s tools for solving the housing question. We argue that in this respect, in the shift of responsibility from the formal institutions to the individuals, the housing system displays continuity between the late socialist and capitalist regimes, thus contributing to emerging body of literature which problematise the strict dichotomy between the socialist and capitalist eras.

Extant studies on Self-Help Housing (SHH) have centered on the types, processes, value, and challenges, but rare on the criteria for assessing its affordability. This paper presents a comprehensive review on the criteria based on published literature in 32 peer-reviewed journals. 81 relevant peer-reviewed papers were used for the study. A total of 8 criteria set, including 31 associated determinants were identified to have influence on SHH affordability. The criteria were; financing, access to land, building quality, development controls and planning regulations, building cost, location, infrastructure and services, and social issues. A framework method was adopted to select the papers. Authors from both developed and developing countries were noted to have made various pioneering contributions to SHH studies. The mean SCImago Journal Rank indicator obtained was above1.00, which showed that the journals used for the review were quality within the time frame of 1997 to 2020. Limitations were mainly seen in our dependence on Scopus, the few search engines, and the selected papers used. This study's outcome will broaden understanding of SHH affordability in developing countries on; policy formulation, housing market conditions, and research This review provides the opportunity for further empirical studies on SHH affordability metric development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Framed by an agenda of financial inclusion, housing for and by the poor has become a field of experimentation. These experiments have included the introduction of small, non-mortgage loans dedicated to the construction and improvement of self-organised housing. This paper provides a close reading of how such housing microfinance schemes have been introduced in Mexico with the support of the World Bank since the early 2000s. We highlight how the roll-out of the new schemes has been facilitated through several loans aimed at structural reforms of the Mexican housing sector. Yet while wrapped in a pro-poor discourse, it ultimately served the goal of expanding housing finance to low and middle-income groups. The ensuing implementation, however, was a complex and protracted process. We argue that it was characterised by experimentation, negotiations, and failures, both within state institutions as well as between state actors, World Bank representatives, and civil society. The conclusion presents Mexico's housing agendas as a field of finance-induced experimentation, in which institutional ruptures resulting from the changes in government rub against the long-term engagement of local housing associations and activists. The latter have played an important role in setting noteworthy limits to financially driven interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-help housing has been widely studied across the developing world. Little is known, however, about the contemporary use of self-help housing in the U.S. In this study we examine self-help housing in the U.S. and its potential links to two related concepts: incremental development and informal housing. We use data from the American Housing Survey from 1997 to 2011 to examine the prevalence, location, and the development process of self-help housing in comparison with that of conventional housing. Our analysis shows that self-help housing is common in the United States, comprising approximately 10% of new owner-occupied single-family housing units nationwide and more than double that in rural areas across the country. We analyse home improvement activity for self-help and conventional homeowners, illustrating the incremental process by which self-builders improve their homes, widespread reliance on do-it-yourself (DIY) methods, and the impact of these methods on housing affordability. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for housing research and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the aspirations and strategies of self-builders of owner-occupied homes in a facilitated self-build scheme. It draws on a qualitative case-study of the Homeruskwartier in Almere, the Netherlands, one the largest assisted self-build schemes in present-day Europe, which caters to lower- and middle-income households. The study problematizes the notion that self-building necessarily leads to the pursuit of use values over exchange values. This questions the positive benefits attributed to self-building. The aspirations of self-builders are not only framed by social and material conditions, but are also being reframed in the action process. The paper stresses the contingent nature of aspirations and strategies and emphasizes the experimental nature of the self-building process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literature is replete with information indicating that the roles, status and positions of men and women in society have evolved significantly over the years. Yet, there is a little understanding of how such changes have occurred in homeownership attainment in developing countries where there is male dominance. Using Ghana as a case study, this study explores the evolution of women's role in homeownership. Findings show that although men exercise greater control in terms of investment and ownership, gender contract renegotiations often lead to an increase in women's participation in homeownership mainly in supportive capacities. Renegotiations have mostly occurred to demystify the normative ideology tying men with the sole responsibility of housing investments. As a consequence, there is evidence of women making financial contributions, supervising construction activities and exploring cost-saving measures to aid the process of family house construction. Generally, findings show that homeownership enhances reproductive roles, uplifts status of men and acknowledges the contributions of women. Similarly, new norms of inheritance supported by statutory and customary law offer ownership stakes to women. In view of this benefit, women tend to be motivated towards providing support for the attainment of family homeownership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

La passion, notion malaisée à cerner, affect dérangeant par sa double dimension affective et représentative, est-elle « un état pathologique normal » ? Elle concerne toute relation à un « objet » qui veut occuper, dans l'existence, une place considérable. Si l'objet du passionné est indéterminé, l'objet de la passion est indispensable au passionné. Un thérapeute peut-il être passionné ou traversé par la passion ? Qu'est-ce qui maintient notre désir de soins et de travail psychique avec l'attention que nous y portons ? La passion de ce travail ne passe-t-elle pas par l'empathie, par l'utilisation d'un langage dans toute son épaisseur, par la régrédience émotionnelle, par un mouvement associatif partagé, un co-travail ? La passion permet un soin psychique créatif, en produisant du vivant : le patient va trouver ses marques dans ses solutions et le thérapeute va rester dans la découverte de lui-même. Elle fortifie notre besoin de nouveaux projets relançant notre motivation et notre confiance. Elle nourrit, maintient notre désir d'être au cœur du travail psychique et de transmettre cette force. Is passion, a concept difficult to define, disturbing affect by its double emotional and representative dimension, "a normal pathological state"? It concerns any relation to an "object" that wants to occupy a considerable place in existence. Can a therapist be passionate or be crossed by passion? Whether it is cultural, artistic, sporting, passion can provoke, we know it well, a passionate outburst. How can one accept its necessity while being wary of its destructive side (mystical passion, delusional passion) where the subject ends up getting lost? Etymology may provide a partial response to the polysemy of the word that has created confusion. Passion comes from the Latin "passio" which refers to the fact of suffering, experiencing. The Greek root "pathos" gave pathology whose original meaning is the study of passions and then that of diseases, and also non-medical terms (pathetic...). The semantic confusion has been based on this for centuries. Passion remains difficult to pin down. What maintains my desire, my passion in this solitary work? I need to remain in the unceasing research, in the questioning. Here are the basics inscribed in me: reading, working meetings that bring pleasure to think while maintaining openness to the unconscious by better grasping the counter-transference, belonging to a society to share the same passion of human knowledge and the same desire to heal. Passions remain pervasive and some take up more space than the object of passion. This is one of the many paradoxes. An other: the passion, this "dark complacency to vertigo" (Paul Ricoeur), allows to alienate oneself in the bond to better find oneself, to recreate oneself. We cannot, escape knowledge about ourselves. Beyond its excess, constitutes a real psychic work of elaboration and symbolization. Let us keep alive this passion for psychic care and work. To do this, let us remain confident in our theoretic-clinical commitments as well as in the changes we deem necessary to help those who come to tell us about their suffering. Who are they? Interest in their own mental health is initially acquired for neurotic patients; it is legitimate and useful. With patients working on a psychotic register, this is not the case and we are faced with an obstacle cited by Marcel Sassolas, which is "the distrust developed by these people towards their own psychic activity". The only real objective of psychiatric care remains the safeguarding and restoration of their psychic activity, knowing full well that being present is a source of danger. What maintains our desire for care and psychic work with the attention we pay to it? The way we work with the richness of the commitments it unders understands – psychoanalysis for me – allows us to understand the human in an exceptional and exciting way. Here are two of my tools. First empathy. It is a dialectic between understanding and feeling that manifests, occurs, in an unseeded manner at the level of the preconscious of one (therapist) or the other (patient). My other tool is this therapeutic device that is co-work (shared associative movement). Daniel Widlöcher's co-thought... The latter has taken up the Freudian concept of "induction of thought". This allows him to link empathy, through "the transfer of thought", to the associative and representational co-thinking of the therapist and the patient. What is this co-work? In psychoanalytic relaxation, for example, we know that a particular word, a phrase, a phoneme can have, for the relaxer, an emotional impact that is inscribed in his thought (reverie) and in his body (sensation). Passion allows creative psychic care by producing from living. It strengthens our need for new projects that boost our motivation and confidence. It maintains our desire to be at the heart of psychic work and that of transmitting that strength. Creativity is not the ability to create a work, it is the ability to creatively live a meaningful life (Winnicott). It is vitality in the service of self-building. Stay alive and passionate, even late in practice, not because of knowledge, experience, but because of the uninterrupted work in self-discovery. To conclude? I consider that a living therapeutic process, that is, subjective appropriation, implies a passionate character in the therapist who offers a place for what is to be deposited there. We are often in paradoxical situations. To better understand its scope, I rely on the Oxford Dictionary's definition: a paradox is an assertion that seems absurd, though maybe truly well-founded. It's all in the maybe. Isn't the psyche that heals the psyche the passion of dialogue with our unconscious? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines forms of housing finance that offer poor households opportunities for sourcing resources for construction work through non‐mortgage microloans. In Mexico, these housing microfinance schemes have recently been incorporated into national housing policies. On a global level, the past 10 to 15 years have seen the emergence of institutional investment in microfinance. I reflect on these processes in this article by bringing critical accounts of financial inclusion in development studies and the debate on financialization within urban studies and beyond into dialogue. I combine micro‐ and macro‐scale perspectives to examine how households become financial clients and how finance gains influence by expanding capitalist markets into the informal housing sector. This discussion is based on policy review and document analyses and an empirically grounded account of an assisted self‐help housing case study. In the article I draw on three focal concepts—risk, debt and marketization—to highlight the ambivalences of the expanded access to finance for poor households engaged in self‐organized building practices. These ambivalences emerge from the multiplicity of operational logics and motivations in the field of housing provision for the poor, and the profoundly conflicting rationalities of financial‐ and social‐sector actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-help housing has been proposed as a solution to provide qualitatively adequate and affordable housing not only nowadays, but also during the late state socialism in the 1970s and 1980s in the former Czechoslovakia. In this article, we focus on how the self-help housing provision was during that era linked with the responsibilisation of households, a technique of governance usually associated with neoliberal regimes. On the case of self-help housing construction in town Myjava, which was supported by local authorities and initiated by local company eager to attract workers, we show then eventually main burden for management and risks steaming from the construction was carried by the individuals and their (extended) families. Seemingly the ideological contradiction of this individualistic solution was resolved through rigorous standardization of construction projects, which enabled to maintain a self-help housing as one of the regime's tools for solving the housing question. We argue that in this respect, in the shift of responsibility from the formal institutions to the individuals, the housing system displays continuity between the late socialist and capitalist regimes, thus contributing to emerging body of literature which problematise the strict dichotomy between the socialist and capitalist eras. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-build is lately attracting much interest as a solution to housing supply that can complement the insufficient delivery of housebuilding by the construction industry. The historical trajectory of self-build shows that from a practice which had a conflictual stance towards central authority in the past, it is now promoted by the same authority within a framework of empowerment of and central power devolution to local communities. Against this backdrop, the challenge is to preserve the spirit of independence that still pervades self-build and yet merge it with the planning frameworks which are used to control development generally. This approach has recently been experimented with by some large-scale self-build projects. Through literature review, this article firstly identifies important values that motivate self-builders; secondly it recognizes rule-based, rather than prescriptive codes such as generative codes, as those that can facilitate autonomy within a loose form of control; and finally it develops case studies that help understand how such values have been interpreted in different ways, reflecting the context. Elaborating on case studies, the discussion section outlines how values can inform different types of generative codes while increasing participation and an enhanced democracy of the planning process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the history of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), thousands of East Germans lived in flats occupied without state permission. What factors enabled and what practices shaped both the emergence and the persistence of informal housing in an East European dictatorship? The socialist authorities did not tolerate informality but contrary to the totalitarian rhetoric of state and party officials, local bureaucrats endeavoured to transform the grey zone of unauthorised housing dubbed 'Schwarzwohnen' into black (illegal) or white (legal). The high frequency of legalisation highlights the relative autonomy of these 'social gatekeepers'. A partial identity of interests between informal occupiers of flats (Schwarzwohner) and the state led to the blurring of boundaries between formal and informal practices. A substantial proportion of Schwarzwohner, however, had little or no contact with authorities, which is indicative of a partly dysfunctional dictatorship. At the same time, Schwarzwohnen developed several unique features different from the squatting of buildings in the Global North-West and from informal settlements in the Global South, most notably a far-reaching compliance with the law which sometimes included unsolicited rent payments. In addition, Schwarzwohner used specific tactics to achieve legalisation such as 'consentful contention'. The effect of the informality was ambiguous as it undermined the state's authority but alleviated the housing shortage and thus (unintentionally) stabilised the state at the same time. Schwarzwohnen vanished with the GDR but has been partly revitalised by the 'Guardian House' scheme in several East German cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a shantytown in Lima, who counts as a resident depends on who is counting. Drawing on 21 months of ethnographic fieldwork in a Peruvian "self-help" housing community, I show how censuses and surveys are woven into residency determinations and negotiations over property rights. In these contexts, "residency" is not a self-evident status but rather a complex performance that involves possessing the right kind of need, participating in development activities, accumulating documents, and being legible to myriad political and personalistic "state-like" entities. Meanwhile, conflicts over inadequate residency performances generate violence, insecurity, and confusion about who "the community" is and who is entitled to represent it. I argue that viewing residency as a contested performance that mediates and remakes long-standing inequalities can improve anthropological interpretations of the sprawling and pockmarked cities of the Global South and the dynamics of urban citizenship that produce them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Egypt passed through a critical political transitions and revolutions starting from early 2011 until the arrival of the democratically elected President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi. The primary slogans of protestors during Egypt’s first 2011 Revolution were ‘bread, freedom, and justice for all (national dignity). These very same issues were addressed previously at the Millennium Summit in September 2000, where the largest gathering of world leaders in history adopted the UN Millennium Declaration, and set up the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), proceeded by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Both the MDGs and SDGs aim to extend the rights of each person to quality healthcare, basic education, shelter, and security. Although, achieving the Development Goals is a top priority on the agenda of Egyptian policy makers, some of the goals have not been achieved. In addition, the global economic crisis since 2008 has imposed new challenges and restrictions that decelerated achievement within the agreed time frame set by the United Nations. Egypt has strong potential growth possibilities, a significant human resource base, and a substantial quantity of un-recycled wastes that could be directed toward sustainable development. The intention of this paper was to discuss and propose a methodology, which promotes a productive workforce, and addresses environmental concerns in aims of supporting the UN Millennium Declaration.

This paper investigates the relationship between self-build housing and the wider planning and housing regime. Although there is growing policy and academic attention to self-build housing, there is a lack of understanding of the institutional and regulatory conditions shaping the prospects of such housing provision. This paper takes the case of The Netherlands and scrutinizes how institutional dynamics over time have made lower and middle residents dependent on densely organized consortia of municipalities, housing associations and developers. These norms of land development appear to be at odds with the logic of self-building. Through exploring evidence in a pilot study of a municipal self-building scheme in Almere, the authors suggest that making self-building the cornerstone of a resident-led land development strategy, also for low- and middle-incomes, implies a reconfiguration of the actors’ positions in housing provision. This entails a commissioning role for residents in the institutional domain of social and commercial developers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article unpacks the relationship between risk perceptions and responses in cities of the global south. It first challenges the assumption that people are irrational and/or lack the ability to comprehend risk when they do not prioritize risk reduction. Second, it argues that the nature of risk perceptions has less direct influence on responses than previous research suggests. A social constructivist approach is applied to explore how individuals process risk and to what extent these perceptions shape preparedness activities. Results are based on ethnographic research in Cochabamba city in Bolivia, where everyday climatic hazards are linked to slow-onset and small-scale impacts. Findings first suggest that people comprehend risk in sophisticated ways. Then through exploration of self-build housing and the adoption of an anthropocentric conceptualization of the house, the article shows that people with high- and low-risk perceptions equally prepare for the impacts of climatic hazards. This is because people prioritize the transformation and consolidation of social, cultural and economic processes which are not directly related to risk reduction when designing and constructing self-built houses. However, disaster risk reduction is automatically mainstreamed into housing because the design and construction features which people associate with risk reduction represent local architectural norms that are associated with ‘good practice’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After 40 years of relative decline, self-organised and civil society participation in housing has ostensibly been resurgent since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Drawing on evidence from ten countries this Special Issue explores the socio-economic and policy drivers of community land trusts, co-operatives, self-help housing and co-housing within different societal contexts using a variety of analytical frameworks. A key finding is that the GFC alone is not a satisfactory explanation for the resurgence. Social origins and contextual drivers are often deeper, more enduring and vary between national contexts. The term ‘collaborative housing’ is now gaining ground as a generic descriptor – shifting the focus from self-organisation to partnerships with varying degrees of community leadership and benefit. This Special Issue provides a platform for future research at the micro-level of organisations, the meso-level of stakeholder co-production, and the macro-level of welfare regimes. It identifies tools to map co-production relationships between the state, market and civil society stakeholders, to track interventions throughout the policy cycle, and to evaluate values and outcomes throughout organisational lifecycles. Knowledge gaps and limitations that future research should address include the limited evidence on the profile of participants and beneficiaries. A more critically-engaged stance is needed to consider consequences of institutionalisation and scaling-up on social outcomes. Finally, we need to learn from the experience of the Global South where self-provided housing is more dominant. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There has been a resurgence of interest in ‘community-based’ and ‘collaborative housing’ in many countries in recent years as this special issue testifies. A key barrier faced by ‘self-help’ groups is often the absence of recognition within government housing policy and funding frameworks. Case studies of policies that have enabled successful engagement with state support are therefore important. This policy review provides an account of the ‘Empty Homes Community Grants Programme’ (EHCGP) in England that enabled over £50 million public funding to be invested by over 100 grassroots organisations between 2012 and 2015 to bring 1299 homes (with 3048 bedrooms) back into use. This programme provides an important example of what can be achieved when procurement systems are re-designed to provide access for grassroots organisations. Drawing on long-term formative evaluations and subsequent legacy impact work, the review considers the context in which the programme developed, the precursors, agenda-setting and policy-influencing processes. This is followed by an account of enactment, delivery and impact of the programme. The next section considers longer term legacy and sustainability. The conclusion draws out the international significance and relevance to other community-based housing fields. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many European countries are experiencing a recent (re)emergence of collaborative housing, such as co-housing, housing co-operatives and other forms of collective self-organised housing. One of the less studied aspects of these housing forms is the relationship between users (i.e. residents) and institutional actors and, in particular, established housing providers. This paper proposes a conceptual framework that helps expand the knowledge on the nature of these collaboration practices. To this end, different concepts and theories are reviewed, with a focus on collaboration and co-production as useful constructs to understand these phenomena. The proposed framework is applied to two examples of collaboration for housing co-production between residents’ groups and established housing providers in Vienna and Lyon, respectively. We found a high degree of user involvement throughout each project. In both cases, the group of residents that initiated the project partnered-up with established housing providers, who facilitated access to key resources and professional expertise. We hypothesise that housing providers with an ethos akin to initiators' values will more likely become (and stay) involved in collaborative housing, as compared to mainstream providers. We conclude with a reflection on possible improvements to our analytical framework and directions for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aim of this paper is to investigate how the institutional context influences the configuration of collaborative housing models in Austria. Although Austria has a well-established cooperative sector, few empirical studies and no comprehensive overviews have been published on collaborative housing. This paper aims to fill this research gap by extending existing work on organisational models within Austrian non-profit housing. The contribution reports original research based on qualitative expert interviews and case studies completed in 2015. We focus our empirical analysis on two local housing contexts with current collaborative housing activity, Vienna and Salzburg. Our findings highlight the importance of partnerships with large cooperatives and the key role of local authorities for the development of collaborative housing initiatives. The main contributions of the paper can be seen in feeding into on-going international comparative research on collaborative housing sectors and on the changing institutional landscapes of housing systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In Nicaragua almost half of the population lives in substandard housing conditions. Drawing on long-term ethnographic research, this paper examines three housing projects constructed in the same rural community between 1997 and 2010. These case studies illustrate how global trends in international development influence the implementation of local development initiatives. In the case of housing, this is seen in the shift from programs that train individuals in construction skills to build their own homes, to an emphasis on providing credit to finance the construction or improvement of a house. This transition, from a focus on empowerment though training to the right to credit, reflects broader shifts and trends within international development. Acknowledging the increasing role of credit in housing programs, four additional strategies are outlined to help governments meet the housing needs of their citizens: flexibility in housing plans and strategies, state level government support, local government participation and comprehensive partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]