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- Title
Housing Priorities in Developing Countries: A Planning Model.
- Authors
Strassmann, W. Paul
- Abstract
The critical decisions in residential construction policy are volume of construction, composition by type of dwelling, location of dwellings and financial terms for the prospective owners, whether occupants or landlords. These four decisions mainly determine who lives where after allowing for changes in the old housing stock, in the number and characteristics of households and in trends throughout the rest of the economy. The planning model presented in this article also abstracts from reality in order to be readily solvable and inexpensive. Unlike other models, it does not let the volume of construction be determined endogenously by shortages and rising rents. People in different countries will disagree about the overall priority of housing, about the desirability of subsidizing the poor with sites or dwellings, and about the expediency of forbidding luxurious construction. A method of analysis can only show the implications of these choices in a variety of settings. Although the investment levels required to place all families on the diagonal are usually unacceptably high, most developing countries can come much closer toward approaching that goal. They must not simply build but should anticipate and monitor the redistribution of the old housing stock.
- Subjects
HOUSING; HOUSE construction; DOMESTIC architecture; DEVELOPING countries; HOUSING finance; PLANNING; HOUSEHOLDS; HOME economics; MATHEMATICAL models
- Publication
Land Economics, 1977, Vol 53, Issue 3, p310
- ISSN
0023-7639
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/3146123