‘Re-occupying the State’: Social Housing Movement and the Transformation of Housing Policies in Taiwan

Abstract

Since the late 1980s, the process of democratization and increased public participation has pressed for the expansion of social welfare in Taiwan, while neoliberalization has affected housing policies to enhance the operation of market mechanisms for housing provision. Nowadays, the Taiwanese state primarily facilitates the growth of housing market and homeownership, exercising little control over speculation. Escalating housing prices have led to a strong social rental housing movement. This chapter explores the diminishing role of the state in Taiwan’s housing system and how housing has been understood by the state, placing the discussions in the political and economic contexts after 1949. The chapter also examines how the social housing movement since 2010 has gradually transformed the role of the state in its provision of housing and what obstacles the movement has to confront.