Do we need innovation in housing policy? Mass production, community-based upgrading, and the politics of urban land in the Global South

Abstract

The papers in this Special Issue demonstrate three persistent, global challenges to urban housing policy: that it is difficult to mass produce housing well; that community-based upgrading programmes often fail to benefit the worst off; and that ultimately, housing policy is a political problem that often fails to consider the diversity of populations at the expense of the least powerful. Importantly, some of the papers problematise what many consider the two most successful areas of housing policy in these regions: the community-based land sharing programmes for redevelopment in south-east Asia and the finance-driven social housing programmes in Latin America. The collection of scholarship, which spans cases in nine countries and touches on mass housing production programmes, incremental development processes, community-based urban upgrading, the legal structure of condominiums, and land-sharing policies, also highlights challenges to policy learning across contexts. In addition to synthesising the major research findings in the component articles in pairs, this editorial introduction reframes the idea of innovation in housing policy and argues that scholars should expand the topics and focus of housing policy research.