Housing

Category: Fields of research

Housing refers to any type of accommodation that individuals and families use as their primary daily living arrangement. The main difference in housing situations is between individual housing – houses and apartments – and collective types of housing – school and university dormitories, army barracks, religious monasteries and convents, prisons, hospitals, communes, nursing homes, etc. This entry focuses on the individual type of housing. Researchers have identified several key areas of interest concerning housing: 1) types of housing regarding legal basis of occupancy, 2) housing inequalities, 3) affordable and adequate housing, 4) impact of housing on other aspects of life, and 5) housing policy.

There are several key types of housing regarding the legal basis of occupancy. Full ownership of the house or apartment refers to individuals or households who own the place where they live and don’t have a mortgage. Individuals or couples who bought through a home loan or mortgage do not fully own that home until they repay that loan or mortgage, because the inability to pay the mortgage payments can lead to foreclosure (loss of legal right of ownership) on the home. Renting a home that is privately owned by some other person or a company on the market is the other major housing type. Public housing refers to properties owned by the state or the local government that are occupied by individuals or families who live for free or pay rent to the state or local government. In some countries (such as the Netherlands), housing associations or cooperatives collectively own homes, and people who are part of those associations or cooperatives can live in those homes. In slums and shanty towns, some people live in makeshift shacks that they don’t legally own. For people without housing, see the entry on homelessness.

Differences in the size of the home, quality of the construction materials, amenities, appliances, existing infrastructure (sewage, electricity, running water, etc.), and location of the home can all lead to housing inequalities between households. Affordable living refers to the ratio between the cost of housing (rent, property tax, utility bills) and income per month or year, for a household. The lower the ratio between the cost and income is, the more affordable housing becomes. Adequate housing refers to some minimum standards that a home has to fulfill. Housing has a major impact on various other aspects of an individual’s life, especially on social status and wealth. Housing policy refers to laws and other measures that the state or local government implements to improve housing situations of individuals, families or disadvantaged groups. Some types of government interventions in housing are: investment in building public housing, lowering or controlling interest rates on home loans, rent control, rent benefits, tax incentives for buying a home, housing allowance, etc.

In Race, Community and Conflict (1967), John Rex and Robert Moore explore how the process of rising real estate prices has influenced the creation of "housing classes". Housing classes denote a situation in which racial and ethnic minorities live in isolated urban areas where there are inadequate housing conditions. Such housing isolation only increases racial discrimination and the poor economic situation of ethnic and racial minorities.

References:

Burgess, and Park. The City (1925);

Castells. City, Class and Power (1978);

Durkheim. Division Of Labor In Society (2014, in French 1893);

Engels. The Condition of the Working Class in England (1885, in German 1845);

Halbwachs. On Collective Memory (1992, in French 1950);

Illich. Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health (1975);

Rex. Race, Community and Conflict (1967);

Shanin. Peasants and Peasant Society (1971);

- The Awkward Class (1972);

Titmuss. Poverty and Population (1936);

Wirth. „Urbanism as a Way of Life”, in American Journal of Sociology (1938);