ABSTRACT
There are two possible explanations for the convergence of experience and policy direction in the five countries. Firstly, state-sponsored housing is indispensable to modern urban society, just as government itself is, because of the growing economic complexities, greater population movements, and greater instability. Secondly, if governments do sponsor and support housing for poor urban households, there will be a constant struggle to renew and upgrade its social and physical conditions as they continually fall behind the rising standards of the majority. Democracy is commonly interpreted as the right to participate and thereby influence decisions. Exclusion is a limited and short-term solution, advocated by few, although the pressures towards exclusion are always present in the name of a narrow kind of harmony. As long as attributes and achievements are differentially rewarded, there will inevitably be a bottom layer and the tendency will be for that bottom layer to participate less in the wider society.
