The Encyclopedia of Housing

Housing addresses basic human needs. At its most elemental level, it acts as shelter, offering protection against excessive cold and heat, rain, high winds, and other intemperate weather situations threatening people's well-being. By the same token, dampness, lead paint, vermin, overcrowding, and other substandard conditions undermine residents’ physical and mental health. Housing also protects people against the risk of victimization by street crime.

Housing fulfills other important functions as well. At the household level, it provides a physical enclosure for domestic behavior—a place of relative privacy for daily activities, where people can cook, eat, socialize, and rest, away from the public realm and a place where, in many cultures, they are born and die. It is also a setting, removed from external scrutiny, where child beating and spousal abuse often go undetected. At the same time, through its location, housing forms the basis for activities in the community and larger outside world, such as interactions with neighbors, work, school, and shopping.

For most residents, however, housing is more than just a structure of “bricks-and-mortar.” Usually, it is a place that people want to make into a home, a place to which they tend to hold emotional attachments resulting from its association with accumulated life experience. Psychologically and socially significant aspects of housing are also evident in people's desire to personalize the interior and exterior space. People attempt to express their individual or group identity through housing. Research has found, for example, that the design of housing may reflect the occupational values of the residents, with self-made businessmen choosing somewhat ostentatious display homes and service professionals opting for more inward-looking designs. Furthermore, from an economic perspective, housing represents the largest financial investment most households will make during their lifetimes. Housing cost burdens for those with low incomes often leave insufficient resources for other necessities, such as food, clothing, medical care, and transportation.

In a wider community context, the design and location of housing can denote a household's affiliation with a particular cultural or religious group, serving to reinforce the social bonds among its members or making possible the carrying out of certain ritual activities. On the other hand, these same housing characteristics also reflect segregation from other population groups and can reinforce unequal access to day care, education, jobs, and life chances generally. In this sense, housing is inextricably connected to questions of redistributive justice and, thereby, to political and economic processes in the wider community and society at large.

It is not only to its occupants that housing is important. Aside from the users, there are the producers: land developers, builders, lenders, Realtors, investors, architects, planners, construction unions, contractors, and many specialized professionals and trades. Each of these groups has it own particular interests. In market societies, these interests revolve around financial gain because, in them, housing is treated foremost as a commodity, to be produced and traded for profit. In these systems, access to housing is a function of ability to pay. This perspective [Page xxvi]contrasts with a view of housing as a right, similar to entitlements to elementary education and basic health care. After years of back-and-forth negotiation among opponents and proponents, at the second U.S. Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II), held in Istanbul in June 1996, governments officially affirmed a commitment to the full and progressive realization of the right to adequate housing. However, in practice, this remains an elusive goal.

At the policy level, governments use housing to attain various other objectives. Chief among them are economic ones. Internationally, housing investments constitute between 2% and 8% of GNP, between 10% and 30% of gross capital formation, between 20% and 50% of accumulated wealth, and between 10% and 40% of household expenditures. Residential construction has numerous forward linkages (e.g., furniture, household appliances) and backward linkages (e.g., building components). Using this multiplier effect, governments often stimulate new construction to boost employment. Alternatively, when inflation is high, governments may seek to slow building by, for example, restricting credit supply. Housing can also be used as a tool to attain population-related objectives. Countries such as Singapore and Israel have attempted to achieve integration of their populations by means of housing whereas others, such as Great Britain and the Netherlands, have used housing as part of population redistribution efforts. In an earlier era, the Republic of South Africa exploited housing as an instrument to implement apartheid.

Just as housing can be used to advance other policy goals, so also can nonhousing policies have significant effects on housing. A case in point was the U.S. transportation policy during the 1950s, when the interstate highway construction program played a key role in promoting low-density suburban sprawl. Other nonhousing policies affecting housing in major ways are those concerned with public finance, trade, employment, and social welfare.

Turner (1976) distinguished between housing as a noun and housing as a verb. According to this distinction, housing can be viewed as a product, ranging from individual artifacts (i.e., a house) to a collection of units (e.g., an apartment building, the national housing stock). Another conceptualization sees housing as a process: the provision and maintenance of housing by means of informal activities (e.g., self-help) and formal programs, embedded in public policies. The latter perspective is less oriented to what housing is (e.g., in terms of its physical standard) and more to what it does (e.g., provides scrutiny and access). Although these two are very different conceptualizations, both make it possible to link different levels of analysis and practice. Studies and programs concerned with homelessness, for example, can (and should) go beyond a narrow focus on the personal characteristics of those who are homeless to include also consideration of the broader contexts with which these individual experiences are intwined, such as local housing and labor markets, national economic and social policies, and the global mobility of investment capital. Because it implicates different levels of action, housing can provide important insights into the workings of society. Thus, there exist studies of how, where, and how much money enters into and leaves the housing system on behalf of households, large corporations, and government entities. There are also many studies of housing interest group politics vis-à-vis local and national government and of how public policies are the outcome of a shifting balance of power among contending forces.

Considering the many functions and different conceptualizations of housing, it is not surprising that, as a field of research, housing draws on many disciplines, including political science, sociology, economics, geography anthropology, and psychology. Housing practitioners likewise have diverse origins: planning, architecture, law, social work, the policy sciences, and public administration, among others. As a result, much of the work in housing has been scattered rather than cumulative. For example, those concerned with legal aspects of housing and those involved with its financial aspects tend to publish in different journals, and they generally go to different conferences. Planners similarly have their own arena of activities, often more directed to physical aspects of housing yet quite distant from architects, who are more specifically oriented to issues of design.

Organizational structure (e.g., separate professional associations) and communication impediments (e.g., jargon) further reinforce these disciplinary and professional boundaries.

This rather amorphous situation is unfortunate because most housing issues do not divide up neatly [Page xxvii]according to these contrived boundaries. Combining insights from one area with those from others produces a broader-based and more effective approach to housing problems. There is a growing recognition that the resolution of practical housing issues increasingly demands approaches based on several disciplines and professions. There is a rising demand for individuals whose thinking is informed by expertise from multiple domains.

The Encyclopedia of Housing responds to this greater interest in integration. Its coverage is multi-disciplinary. Its authors represent more than a dozen disciplines and work in widely different settings: a range of academic departments, a variety of public agencies at the federal and local level, nonprofit organizations, and several private firms. This broad spectrum results from a deliberate decision to cast a wide net to capture the diversity and scope of the housing field. By consequence, readers will find entries written by contributors favoring demand-side economics as well as others by proponents of a supply-side perspective. The list of authors includes longtime champions of a progressive housing agenda as well as leading advocates of a more conservative political paradigm. The field does not speak in unison. My purpose was to reflect this diversity and to bring together the many different voices in a balanced mix. In doing so, I have tried not to impose my personal viewpoints, which are available in more appropriate places elsewhere (e.g., van Vliet– 1992, 1997). An alternative approach would have been to remain within a narrowly defined, single disciplinary or political framework. This would have meant more in-depth treatment but of fewer subjects. It would have been a different project. It also would have prevented the work from bringing into focus the many and important connections between the different disciplines in the field.

A number of other reference works related to housing are available. To begin with, there are several quite voluminous dictionaries of housing-related terms. For example, Sayegh's (1987) effort lists over 28,000 entries. Not all of these terms have a direct bearing on housing (e.g., self-esteem, spinster, and schizophrenia, among others, seem only marginally relevant), but the comprehensive scope ensures that users with a question about any aspect of housing will find a listing. For instance, in case one seeks a definition of door, window, roof, or driveway, Sayegh provides an answer. However, considering the exhaustive listing, by necessity these answers tend to be brief, generally limited to one or two lines. Rostron (1997) has compiled a similar dictionary of housing.

Several other works also feature brevity but with a stronger concern for aspects of application. Examples are Dumouchel's (1985) The Commissioner's Dictionary of Housing and Community Development Terminology and Moskowitz and Lindbloom's (1993) New Illustrated Book of Development Definitions. A much more specialized effort along these lines is The Automated Builder by Carlson (1995), which concerns itself strictly with industrialized housing. However, the choice of some terms is a bit curious (e.g., potable water: safe drinking water; PR: public relations; PC: personal computer), whereas many others have a rather technical orientation, describing certain construction-related activities, defining certain tools or building components, at times with reference to their commercial manufacturer.

A number of discipline-based reference works also exist. Morrow's (1987) A Dictionary of Landscape Architecture contains an extensive list of brief definitions, although few of them are directly relevant to housing. On the business side, there are several reference works on real estate investment, development, and management (e.g., Blankenship, 1989; Tosh, 1990). Packard and Korab (1995) offer a lavishly illustrated Encyclopedia of American Architecture whose eclectic selection of 234 entries includes diverse topics such as adhesives, computer, fountain, housing, L. Mies van der Rohe, I. M. Pei, seismic design, and wood frame structure. A somewhat dated work by Heyer (1978) focuses exclusively on individual architects, as does Placzek's (1982) four-volume encyclopedia. Emanuel's (1994) Contemporary Architects is a similar resource of more recent vintage. Detailed information and visual documentation of cultural, geographic, environmental, and climatic aspects of traditional architecture in some 80 countries around the world can be found in Oliver's (1997) recent three-volume opus. Whittick (1974) provides a not quite current but still interesting international survey of urban planning, including some aspect of housing. Finally, there also exist several practice-oriented publications, for example, The Subdivision and Site Plan Handbook, by Listokin and Walker (1989) and [Page xxviii]Time-Saver Standards for Housing and Residential Development, by De Chiara, Panero, and Zelnik (1995). Additional publications in this genre include Harris (1988) and Colley (1993).

All these reference works differ in various ways from the present volume. To begin with, this Encyclopedia is strictly orientated to housing, albeit broadly viewed. Its focus and scope are defined in substantive terms from a multidisciplinary perspective. This approach contrasts with one that would adopt a narrower, sectoral perspective delineated by a particular discipline or profession. Furthermore, in this volume, treatment of subjects goes well beyond providing merely a definition or brief description, whether the topic be Abandonment or Zoning. For example, to the latter subject, Morrow (1987) devotes two brief paragraphs, Dumouchel (1985) gives it one short paragraph, and it gets three lines from Moskowitz and Lindbloom (1993) and one sentence from Carlson (1995). This Encyclopedia provides more detailed coverage: In addition to a full essay on Zoning, it also includes related entries on, for example, Exclusionary Zoning, Inclusionary Zoning, and Subdivision Controls. Although the aforementioned sources are useful for purposes of quick reference, they serve a different function from this volume, which, aside from offering initial definitions, provides expanded treatment.

This book, then, is intended to address a gap in the literature. It offers a brief description of each topic, further elaboration of selected aspects, and critical assessment. Virtually all entries are also accompanied by a brief bibliography, listing classic works, recent authoritative studies, or other key publications. These references serve less as source documentation for the entries than as suggestions for readers who want to study a subject in greater depth. Inevitably, they are selections from much larger compilations. In some cases, opinions may differ over what should be included. However, the intent in each instance was to provide a reasonable representation of the relevant literature on any given topic. The entries also include brief descriptions of housing organizations and periodical publications.

The length of entries varies. Short entries typically furnish concise reviews of relevant research findings, whereas longer, more detailed entries usually include historical background, a review of legislative context, or an analysis of policy trends. Key topics get more coverage than more peripheral ones. A strategy of “triangulation” ensured that major topics are discussed under more than one title. In most of those instances, one of these titles has been chosen as a “nodal” entry (see below), and related aspects are discussed in additional entries, identified by cross-references. For example, the first entry, Abandonment, presents a compact and informative discussion of the topic, and cross-references identify related aspects, such as Blight, Code Enforcement, Redlining and Urban Redevelopment, which are discussed in other entries.

With respect to housing-related organizations and publications, coverage was sometimes restricted by the availability of information. We considered eliminating those cases or imposing the same word limit on all these entries. However, accommodating a certain unevenness in length appeared to be preferable over truncating and impoverishing a substantial number of entries in favor of uniformity. Furthermore, all these entries include address information letting readers know where to obtain further details.

The cross-references are an important feature of this Encyclopedia. Often, a number of entries form a cluster of interrelated topics. Cross-references at the end of entries help identify these clusters and facilitate an understanding of the connections between different subjects. Their organization follows a nodal pattern; that is, in each case, one entry will serve as a central point with a relatively extensive list of cross-references to related “satellite” entries. Each of these satellites will have fewer cross-references, one of which always leads back to the nodal entry and via it to other, related satellites. The entries on Affordability, Discrimination, and the Elderly are examples of such nodal entries. A full list is provided in Appendix A. For the sake of convenience, nodal cross-references are printed in boldface roman type to set them apart from the other cross-references.

The Encyclopedia has four appendices. The first comprises the nodal entries. The second lists the housing organizations included as entries. The third does the same for housing publications. These lists provide convenient overviews. The fourth appendix is a chronology of major U.S. housing legislation. Most of these acts and their major components are also covered in separate entries.

[Page xxix]There are three indices at the end of this volume. The first index lists the authors of this encyclopedia and enables readers to find the contribution(s) each has written. The second index comprises the names of the authors whose works are cited in the brief bibliographies that conclude most entries under the brief heading “Further Readings.” The third index includes terms appearing in the text of the entries. Whenever a term in this index refers to a topic to which an entire entry is devoted, the pagination inclusive of coverage is printed in boldface; additional mention of that topic, incidental to other entries, is included as well.

Scientific reference works have a reputation for being as dull as dishwater. Some unwritten law appears to proscribe plain language. Although the use of jargon can be a parsimonious way of communicating within a particular discipline or profession, it hinders effective cross-boundary communication. In line with the intent to foster multidisciplinary integration, most contributors to the Encyclopedia purposely tried to make their writing accessible to others outside their specialization. Hence, this is a reference work meant to serve several user groups, including students, teachers, researchers, housing professionals, and government officials. A prepublication version proved to be a useful teaching tool; students found the succinct coverage informative and indicated that the system of cross-references helped them to develop a more coherent grasp of multifaceted issues.

A number of entries were written by housing practitioners, and people in the field have reacted positively to parts of the manuscript while it was in progress. Nevertheless, this Encyclopedia is not primarily oriented to immediate application in practice. It is not a “how-to-do-it” manual. Thus, readers will find few specific guidelines for planning and design, no hands-on architectural programs, and no specification of the detailed steps borrowers go through when seeking a mortgage loan. However, the entries do assist in the conceptualization of housing problems and outline methods for studying and resolving them. For example, the entry of Discrimination identifies domains of housing where discrimination occurs, the forms it takes, the reasons behind it, and its effects. Related, cross-referenced entries go into greater depth on how to detect housing discrimination, the extent to which it occurs, and how to prevent it. Other entries provide information on organizations actively working to counter discriminatory practices.

Similarly, in addition to the entry on Affordability, related entries address questions of how afford-ability can be measured, the advantages and disadvantages of alternative measurement methods, the characteristics of a variety of subsidy approaches, and the activities of organizations whose mission it is to promote affordability. Here, again, the cross-references are a useful tool.

An acknowledgment of humbleness: Its title notwithstanding, this volume cannot be truly encyclopedic in the sense of being completely comprehensive. It is extensive in its coverage. However, it is not exhaustive. Although it includes many important housing topics in several disciplines, the choice for multidisciplinarity has also meant that no single discipline could be fully covered. Some readers may find that a favorite topic is not included or not discussed as fully as they would like. Limits on the project necessitated a selection of topics and required authors to put strict boundaries on write-ups of subjects meriting book-length discussion. However, throughout, an attempt was made to arrive at decisions that would produce results representative of pertinent research and practice.

It is important to be aware that this volume is not a compilation of empirical research. The entries were not written to report detailed findings of specific studies. Instead, they offer more broad-ranging coverage that summarizes and synthesizes the current state of knowledge. Furthermore, although every effort was made to include the latest information, the lag between collection and availability of data inevitably results in the description of circumstances at least several years in the past. However, many housing issues have historical continuity and fundamental characteristics that endure. The entries are meant to provide understanding and insights not radically changed by tomorrow's developments. For those interested in housing statistics, Simmons (1997) has provided a convenient organization in a single source, containing some 200 tables with detailed data on housing demand, housing starts, housing investment, household trends, ownership [Page xxx]rates, and other aspects of the U.S. housing stock and market dynamics.

Having described what this Encyclopedia includes, it is appropriate as well to be clear about what it does not include. Space restrictions and the wish to avoid duplication produced a decision not to include biographical entries. Instead, many persons who have been prominent in housing in the United States are mentioned in the context of the situations in which they made their presence felt. Readers interested in more extensive coverage of particular individuals are referred to various who's who publications and existing biographies (e.g., Macfadyen, 1970; Davis, 1973; Richards, 1977; Placzek, 1982; Novak, 1988; Doumato, 1989; Tafel, 1993; Tominaga, 1993; Emanuel, 1994).

Nor does this Encyclopedia provide a comprehensive history of housing. Its orientation is more to the present. Selected historical topics have been included, however, when they offer a useful background for contemporary issues. For example, the essay on the housing of slaves, while of interest in itself, informs about antecedents to the subsequent housing situation of African Americans, discussed in a separate essay. Likewise, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 is covered as an important precursor to the Civil Rights Act of 1968. In other cases, essays include a historical dimension insofar as it sets the context for a better understanding of a current topic. Examples are the entries on Lending Institutions, Cooperative Housing, Federal Government, and Housing Codes. Readers interested in more in-depth treatment of historical aspects of housing are referred to specialized works for specific countries (e.g., Bullock & Read, 1985; Daunton, 1990; Doan, 1997; Gauldie, 1974; Mason, 1982; Wright, 1983) or cities (Bowly, 1978; Fairbanks, 1988; Plunz, 1990; Shapiro, 1985).

Full treatment of past and current housing legislation would constitute an encyclopedia in its own right. This volume contains a chronological listing of major housing legislation in the United States (Appendix D) as well as selective coverage of individual acts. Many sections give brief descriptions that state, for example, a law's intent and its eligibility requirements. A number of housing acts, generally viewed as having been more important, get more extensive discussion. Sometimes this occurs under a legislative heading for all or part of a given act (for example, Section 8, Community Development Block Grant). Other times, cross-references point to more extensive, separate discussion on major elements of a certain act or topics related to it. Examples are Wagner-Steagall Housing Act (Public Housing), Housing Act of 1949 (Urban Redevelopment), Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968 (Section 235, Section 236), the Civil Rights Act of 1968-Title VIII (Discrimination), and the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act (Homelessness). Readers will find detailed coverage of U.S. housing legislation in U.S. House of Representatives (1991) and Milgram (1994). More general treatment of the legal aspects of housing is provided by, for example, Burnet (1996) and in periodical publications such as Housing Law Bulletin, Housing Affairs Letter, and Housing and Development Reporter. A comprehensive, ongoing information service on housing law and practice in Britain is the multiple-volume set edited by Arden, Hunter, and Pramall (1972), supplemented by regular loose-leaf additions.

Finally, the primary frame of reference for this Encyclopedia is North America—in particular, the United States. Housing legislation and institutions, for example, are discussed predominantly within this context.

Lack of space would not permit equal coverage of other countries. To be sure, there are a number of international entries, but they do not focus on any single country in particular. Instead, they concern themselves with a broad geographical region or a topic that is more generally relevant, irrespective of national boundaries. They were included because housing in the United States can be better understood when placed in a wider spectrum of perspectives (van Vliet–, 1990). Public housing, privatization, self-help, and community-based initiatives, to name but a few, all have origins or parallels elsewhere. Therefore, readers will find entries on housing in Canada, Western and Eastern Europe, the Third World, cross-national housing analysis, the Global Strategy for Shelter, the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements, and the World Bank, among others. These international entries help set out a framework for evolutionary policy making, which enables U.S. housing policies and practices to be informed by the experiences from other countries. In a generic sense, many housing issues transcend the peculiarities of the U.S. housing system. Therefore, I hope that also the reading public elsewhere will find the Encyclopedia's treatment of these issues to be of interest.