ABSTRACT
This chapter makes a tentative, preliminary proposal of a housing privatization policy for a district of a large city in which most of the residential housing stock has been publicly owned and maintained, and operated with subsidized rent levels. It identifies as a crucial issue in privatization the choice between regulatory and structural approaches to realizing solidarity and participation. The chapter summarizes "institutionalist" thinking about the dynamics of an urban residential housing market following a conventional privatization of the publicly owned stock. It outlines the range of structural and regulatory policies currently pursued in Western housing economies. The chapter proposes a specific, eclectic mix of the policies as an alternative to an unrestricted distribution of public housing units to their occupants. Supposing that one arrives at conclusions about which goals to pursue and what tools to employ, a crucial question is that of the competence and size of the administrative apparatuses that will carry out the various policies.
