ABSTRACT

This book investigates how housing policy changes in Asia since the late 1990s have impacted on housing affordability, security, livability, culture and social development.

Using case study examples from countries/cities including China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, the contributors contextualize housing policy development in terms of both global and local socio-economic and political changes. They then investigate how policy changes have shaped and re-shaped the housing wellbeing of the local people and the social development within these places, which they argue should constitute the core purpose of housing policy.

This book will open up a new dimension for understanding housing and social development in Asia and a new conceptual perspective with which to examine housing which, by nature, is culture-sensitive and people-oriented. It will be of interest to students, scholars and professionals in the areas of housing studies, urban and social development and the public and social policy of Asia.

chapter 1|7 pages

Introduction

Conceptual contexts

chapter 2|21 pages

Housing policy and urban development in China

The public housing perspective

chapter 3|21 pages

The security-based public housing policy of Hong Kong

A social development interpretation

chapter 7|17 pages

No one left homeless

Universal provision of housing in Singapore

chapter 8|16 pages

Housing policy in Malaysia

Bridging the affordability gap for medium-income households

chapter 9|22 pages

The unfinished agenda

National housing programmes and policy shifts in India

chapter 11|22 pages

Vietnam’s post-reform housing policies

Social rhetoric, market imperatives and informality

chapter 14|6 pages

Conclusion

Asian housing policies in the social development contexts