This study investigates the correlation between the variables viz. geographical, social, economic and a hybrid of the three; on residential choice. Residential choice includes choice of location, choice of type of dwelling unit and choice of ownership. The target group considered for the study is a middle income group (MIG) with á range of monthly household income between 10,000 to 50,000 Indian Rupees (INR). The motivation of the study lies in finding an optimal and sustainable allocation of land and other resources for residential functions according to the responsiveness of changing urban housing demand in metropolitan cities – particularly for middle income groups. The other income brackets, namely economically weaker section (EWS), lower income group (LIG) and higher income group (HIG), have been deliberately kept outside the scope of the study as income groups are extremely elastic in India and merit completely different approaches. Thus, affordability and enabling strategies, is of uppermost importance for EWS and LIG, while non-priced items i.e. individual preferences, image of a locality etc. are significant for HIG. Whereas, the mid range with its increasing purchasing power, forms a significant bandwidth in the 1.1 billion population of the country. It is increasingly targeted by the Multi-National-Companies (MNCs) of Fast – MovingConsumer-Goods (FMCGs), as well as, the housing-market players. The study would be relevant to various actors including among others – policy makers, real estate developers, planners and researchers. It will help policy makers formulate strategies to analyze future growth directions of a city, conditions of urban sprawl and re-densification. It will enable the real estate developers to come up with the right mix of housing typologies as well as their appropriate pricing. It can also provide key inputs to the planners for land use planning and zoning as well as re-evaluation of development control guidelines. The study will also offer a scope to review the changing responsiveness of housing demand to various parameters, over time. The study is based on the research findings carried across two metropolitan cities, Nagpur and Kolkata, over a period of two decades, 1990 -2008. Copyright©2012 IAHS.
Our contribution aims at thinking over the subject of the environmentally sustainable quarter, placing it within the wider scientific and technical background that links the impact of the environmental dimension in contemporary town planning to the emergency of the unsolved question of urban suburbs, that is showing all its problematic nature and impossibility of postponement in the upgrading of the existing town, in the light of the more and more urging themes of environmental sustainability, that identify the precondition for a suitable intervention in the compact town. Town planning logics of these urban areas, that are quantitatively prevailing on the dimensions taken by the settlements built in Italy during the second postwar period, are strongly related to the research works of the modern movement in architecture and town planning, that assigned to the quarter a vital role in town planning and building. It is for this reason that some features are proposed to debate, that sustainable quarters should have in order to address requalification planning choices of the existing towns and/or of the reconstruction/construction from the beginning. Copyright©2012 IAHS.
South Africa urgently needs new strategies to alleviate poverty and an associated reassessment of its problematic housing policy. Its poorer citizens live in either state-sponsored houses or in shacks, both types being seriously deficient, but in different ways. It is claimed that only China and India have built more low-cost houses than South Africa has since 1994 – an astonishing 2.8 million, identical, small, freestanding, box-like houses rolled-out as vast dormitory townships on the fringes of cities – cruel parodies of Western suburbia. They are given away for free, fostering a culture of entitlement, while their remoteness and lack of employment opportunities perpetuate social and economic marginalisation. Because of this factor, as well as boredom and low self-esteem, many young men turn to crime, obviously an untenable situation. Most of their occupants previously lived in shantytowns, which government promised to eradicate, equating shack-living with homelessness. These, however, continue to mushroom, some of which are particularly vibrant, socially cohesive and an inspiring testimony to resilience and innovativeness in spite of tenuous conditions, limited resources and health hazards. A new typology needs new concepts. Conventional Western urban and housing models have proved to be awkward settings for the urban poor of SA, and it will be argued that local and African vernacular patterns should be considered. A typology is proposed that relies on four interdependent, constituent elements: (1) urban integration and access to engineering infrastructure; (2) strategically located market streets; (3) reinforced concrete frames defining attached shop-front buildings; and (4) assisted self-help, drawing on the proven ability of deprived households to help themselves. The focus falls on conceptualising pertinent design criteria by re-interpreting the way shantytowns and villages in East Africa respond to socio-economic and technological realities, as well as to appropriate methods and materials of construction, while perhaps crucially, the emphasis is placed on the importance of community and locality in improving quality of life and economic self-reliance. Copyright©2012 IAHS.
This paper studies, analysis, and discusses the housing for the poor: problems and solution that have spread in Jordan since 1970’s. The paper contains Sex sections. It contains an introduction. And the second section explains the understanding of the poor in Jordan. The third section studies the enumeration of the census, dwellings since (1922). The beginning of economic and social plans and its relationship with housing projects. The fourth section discusses the instruction of king Abdullah II to concerned ministries, governmental departments and foundations to create suitable single and separate houses for poor families. The fifth section concentrates on the analysis of the possibility to having suitable space, vertical extension and unit-cost factors. The sixth section and final section gives the negative and positive results and analysis of the outcome. Copyright©2012 IAHS.
The acquisition of a method of approach to energy planning for housing in a small town appears to be the tool that awards to the variable energy a ‘strategic’ peculiarity for the programming of the city. This testing instrument propose a new work organization energy planning at three levels: the first phase of analysis, including urban analysis, technical and energetic analysis of construction and size and power analysis. Urban analysis is a sharp classification of the building for the construction typology and volumetric order. The building’s energy performance are estimated through research of the materials used for the external covering’s achievement of the buildings and the last type of analysis executes an energy balance about dwelling houses in the town through the comparison of the warmth dispersed from the buildings every year and the energy used. A second phase of planning, testing the limits imposed considering legislation and establishing an energy balance of building and the objectives and steps to achieve them. The results of these tests allow to get a clear picture about shortages of the area object of study, like the energetic efficiency of buildings and the lack of local energy production areas. The phase of design is constituted by ‘objective scenarios’ of the plan that are the consumption’s reduction reached through the implementation of performs direct towards improvement of systems and sub-systems building. The tool of planning proposes a series of restructuring measures construction, along with strategies for their realization, based on a logic of rewarding suggested by the Italian legislation which have taken in the European Community Directive. It is also proposed the revision of urban and building communal regulations in force on the town object of planning to agree dispensation to urban prescriptions already existing to a reduction of heat loss and emission of carbon dioxide. Copyright©2012 IAHS.
In the 1950s a ten-year municipal plan (and its subsequent five-year extension) set off the construction of many public housing complexes in Porto to solve the need for housing, as industrialization phenomena had caused relevant migration to cities. These housing settlements (near half of the current total public housing in Porto), despite their careful urban design, do not present nowadays satisfactory quality level (constructive, but also architectural and residential), failing to comply with some of the present regulations and living standard expectations (e.g. dwellings reduced area). In the last few years, some of these residential units have been renovated. One reference case is presented, a 1953 municipal housing in Porto presently under renovation, illustrating the urban regeneration that may result if deeper housing refurbishment is contemplated on a municipal strategy, without necessarily a much higher investment. Original dwelling typologies (with very limited area) are merged to. give place to new ones (now in accordance to present regulations), apparently reducing population density of the related area. This paper also addresses the false impression that may occur when municipal housing management policies and distribution are based on dwelling typology. Copyright©2012 IAHS.
This paper explains how urban renewal plans have responded to new conditions and requirements, caused by changes in the population and in social structure. It evaluates the urban renewal plans that the city of Rotterdam launched in the 1970s, and which drew international attention at the time. With this plan, Rotterdam addressed the decay of housing and facilities in urban areas. The policies combined social housing development and the modernization of building and living conditions with the participation of residents. The paper shows that human habitat and community building are important factors in urban renewal strategies, and that effective urban renewal projects should address two key issues: 1) they should take an integrated approach to the physical, environmental, social and economic programmes; and 2) they should provide sustainable solutions instead of quick fix interventions that do not stand the test of time. Copyright©2012 IAHS.
