The right to housing? The antinomies of social housing between public and private

What is social housing, is it a right or a property? Is it guaranteed for all by welfare state or non-governmental organizations or a commodity in capitalist production and market relations? According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, housing is a human right for ‘a standard for living.’ Nowadays referred next to ‘adequate housing,’ ‘the right to housing’ refers to specific groups of society such as ‘women, children, slum-dwellers, homeless, disabled, displaced, migrants, and indigenous’ as denoted by the UN Habitat for human rights. Either defined in relation to ‘the standard of living’ by mass housing of the Fordist welfare state or to ‘the quality of life’ by ‘the right to buy’ discourse of the post-Fordist neoliberal state, ‘the right to housing’ represents the antinomy of social housing oscillating between public and private entity. It is a means of realizing the eidos of both collective and individual, therewithal of building the wall or the cave to shelter and to evict, or to imprison. Referred as an umbrella term for producing collective habitation for specific groups in need of adequate housing, social housing is inclusive of diverse terminology in terms of political, socio-economic and institutional tools as well as of procedural approaches in building design and construction typologies and of shareholders in production. These terms vary as affordable housing, public housing, self-help housing, core housing, cooperative housing, co-housing, low-income housing, low-cost housing, and so on. Informal housing or self-provisional housing also participate in this sub-terminology of social housing developed as informal responses to housing demand by the poor. However, all the above classifications related to form and content, assessable and evaluable not only to spatial and functional but also social and cultural criteria, do not figure out the critical core in social housing as a field of space production. Through a Platonic reading of space, social housing signifies a dialogue between form and content. Through a Marxist reading of space production, social housing reifies the eidos, thus is a commodity. Superposing both readings on a material ground, social housing dialectically denotes both public and private property due to provision, distribution, use and maintenance of resources and people on land through settlement and eviction processes reproducing itself anew. As long as the notion of dwelling is tied to the land dominated by production and market relations, housing embodies the notion of property as a field of policy, planning and design by searching for equilibrium between land value and population control. It is a ‘right’ neutralizing the tension between accumulation by dispossession and need for shelter as well as a ‘commodity’ fatting up housing industry, thus is a means of reconciliation and of restraint at the same time. Social housing has occupied an urgent field of architecture and urbanism since the Industrial Revolution. It was a ‘space of harmony’ for ‘emancipation’ of the working class in tune with the Fordist everyday life, but rather is a ‘conflict space’ in the post-Fordist age intermingled with the search for forms and tools of common land and home ownership against the rise of poverty and shortage of resources in different geographies. At this specific moment, this paper aims at a critical analysis on the antinomies of social housing by digging Fordist and post-Fordist discourses and practices on social housing and by unravelling the networks between institutions and actors as well as environment and people in housing production. With reference to the praxis of social housing in the last century oscillating between settlement and eviction practices, it suggests a materialist and dialectic re-definition of ‘public’ and ‘private’ for social housing.

Policy, program and project in social housing of the welfare state: A comparative analysis of postwar Mediterranean models in translation of existenzminimum

Sila Karatas Basoglu

About 20 years after CIAM 2, themes of minimum dwelling for working class were put into large-scale practice for building welfare state and social democracy in all countries that participated in the Marshall Plan and postwar phenomena of transnational and local development. Spread in response to housing shortage in war-devastated European countries by reconstruction programs, but advanced within regional planning strategies to industrialize and populate rural territories by development programs, social housing programs of welfare states adopted existenzminimum in realization of workers’ habitats at peripheries of modern cities. These programs had similarities in terms of policies and governance, financial and organizational models, tenancy and ownership systems, planning and land use strategies, population and density patterns, settlement morphologies and architectural typologies as well as roles of policy-maker, planner, architect and community in postwar habitat development. While embracing Taylorist and Fordist planning, design and construction methods to maximize economic and spatial efficiency and revitalize construction economy through prefabrication of housing as well as promoting peripheral urban development, they redefined economic and hygienic dwelling. Sticking to rational urbanization in garden suburbs though, individualized middle class welfare within preindustrial patterns of community life superseded collectivized working class welfare of industrial domestic life. Yet, postwar social housing represents long-disappeared public practice for participatory and sustainable housing, and face privatization and gentrification by neoliberal urban practices. On that note, this proposal aims to comparatively analyse social housing programs introduced by welfare states of France, Italy, Greece and Turkey as the Mediterranean countries participated in the Marshall Plan and performed large-scale housing in planned industrial city-regions. It suggests an interdisciplinary portrayal of their schemata in housing production in terms of policy, program and project to trace their translation of urban, architectural and societal narrative of existenzminimum especially when bottom-up initiatives reclaim social housing against current housing crisis.

2019

Villes à la frontière et transformation de l'espace

Lena Poschet El Moudden

Few borders exist which separate two countries as dramatically disparate as the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Both share the territory of the Hispaniola island, but a profound process of differentiation rooted in the colonial division of the island between France and Spain and ideologically maintained by both modern nations, has lead to what Théodat (1998, 2003) calls the "twofold insularity" – each country behaves as if it were located on a separate island. In spite of all prejudices and ethnical, historical, linguistic, social, economic or religious differences, people living in the border regions established cross-border relations which, even if largely based on economic interests, are much more frequent and important to both nations than officially admitted (De Jesus Cerdano and Dilla, 2005; Sillé & Segura & Cabral, 2002). The local dynamic created by this exchange becomes palpable when one observes the busy binational market in the border towns of Ouanaminthe (Haiti) and Dajabón (Dominican Republic). Twice a week, people from nearly the whole northern part of both countries travel to these towns located on either side of the Masacre River, in order to buy and sell goods or to offer services in the market of Dajabón. The other days, tons of cargo transit to Haiti, to the extent that the once small borderland settlements have become an important junction in the economic subsystem of the northern part of the island. Moreover, the construction of a free zone in Ouanaminthe in 2002 –to produce textiles for the US-market– has connected the borderland towns to the international economy. This recent development is set within a context of progressive opening of borders (Martinez, 1994). It is the result of international policies that have been decided in the capitals, without consulting the concerned regions. In Ouanaminthe and Dajabón, local institutions are weak and receive no or little financial and administrative support from central administration. They do not have the means to cope with growing pressure on land and infrastructure, as the emergence of legal and illegal livelihood opportunities in the borderland has generated a threefold increase of the overall population in the past twenty years (Dajabón grew from 8'500 inhabitants in 1980 to 16'000 in 2002 and Ouanaminthe from 7'000 in 1981 to 39'000 in 2003). How did these recent economic, political and societal transformations shape the urban space of the two borderland towns? I addressed this issue by analyzing the motivation of stakeholders involved in the process of spatial transformation, and the impact of their actions. In my work I refer to the conceptual framework of urban intermediation (Bolay and Rabinovich, 2004), i.e. the spatial issues that each town has to address according to its internal characteristics, its function in national and international networks and its relation to the direct rural environment. In order to use this framework for the borderland issues, the conceptual part of this study proposes to develop the concept of "borderland intermediation". To the existing urban intermediation concept, it adds the influence of the characteristics of the border (based on policy and political aspects, economic issues, local identities, social networks, national defense issues and geographical insertion). By doing so, it relates the bi-national system of borderland towns to the intermediation concept. Data has been collected over three and a half years during several periods of fieldwork: observation and mapping of occupation and use of urban space, cartography, qualitative interviews with local stakeholders and residents, completed by other primary and secondary sources. This study shows that the recent transformations have accentuated the existing unbalanced relationship between the two towns. The powerlessness of the municipality of Ouanaminthe to meet population growth and to impose regulations or taxes related to the growing trade has enhanced its dependency to the Dominican town. For a growing number of Haitians, it is of existential importance to cross over to Dajabón in order to seek income, healthcare and education and this, in spite of latent racism and mistreatments. Founded on a strong sentiment of exploitation, Haitians often criticize the capitalist or even colonialist relationship imposed by their neighbors: not only the fact that the bi-national market takes place in Dajabón, but also that Dominican enterprises develop subsidiaries in Ouanaminthe, taking advantage of cheap labor and the absence of local production. On the contrary, the majority of Dajabón residents interviewed do not need to cross the river for their living. Most of them have never been to Ouanaminthe, but consider it insalubrious, out of control and dangerous. Both towns lack application of regulations in urban planning matters. Thus, spatial growth has entirely been ruled by landowner structure and land occupation practices. Around Dajabón, the adjacent land belongs mainly to two landowners, whose strategy –to enhance soil value through development of equipped middleclass neighborhoods– has restricted the urban sprawl. In Ouanaminthe land belongs to a multitude of small peasants. The selling and illegal occupation of rather small plots leads to sprawling urban growth, guided by rural pathways and leaving entire parts of neighborhoods inaccessible to motor vehicles. Population growth has also been absorbed by high densification of existing neighborhoods. No formal collaborations exist between the two municipalities. Informal ones do, through the implication of the two mayors, but overall, cross-border collaboration is left to NGOs and professional associations who militate for human rights, environmental issues and fair treatment inside the bi-national market. International development agencies present in the borderland initiate projects with bi-national concern, but these are disconnected from the local level and strongly influenced by the fact that these agencies relate directly to the central governments. We also observe a process of internal segregation in both towns, as commercial establishments progressively occupy parts of the town centers and the emergent middle class gathers in specific neighborhoods. Ouanaminthe and Dajabón are functionally interlinked and their transformation is undeniably governed by the progressive permeability of the border. Nevertheless, this border separates two completely different urban landscapes that are deeply marked by the internal characteristics of each town. Furthermore, the unequal and complex relationship of both populations creates the paradox that their spatial proximity accentuates the segregation in both towns, as it allows the citizens of both countries to stay in their environment and to commute –if necessary– even daily. This work shows that the application of the intermediation concept is relevant for the study of complex relationships that govern borderland space. The analysis based on this concept has enabled to study, on a local level, processes that are taking place on a global level. In so doing, it has allowed us to provide some answers to the central question: "How do local populations, national and international firms and governments react when a territorial economy, based on agriculture, is progressively linked to international networks? "

EPFL2006

Public urban transport in the context of social inclusion and cohesion – the case of Santiago de Chile

Regina Witter

What are the impacts of a re-designed public transportation system in a city where social differences are heavily manifested in spatial separation, i.e. where exist certain inequalities concerning the access to daily activities and participation in urban life? Are the changes just of transport-related manner, resulting in changes in accessibility conditions? Or might there be further impacts on people’s mobility behaviour, or even on economic and spatial structures within the city, affecting the manifestation or dissolution of social differences? What, moreover, happens, if the new system presents a set of functioning problems, and the systematic changes are very drastic, neglecting existent peoples’ preferences and habits concerning the entire urban transport system, including private modes? What are the concrete reasons for people’s lack of capability to cope with the new system? Finally, are there any measures to be implemented to support the societal acceptance of the new transportation system, in favour of a profitable exploitation, social interaction among users and thus, social cohesion? These are the main interests of the PhD-related research presented in this article, giving some insights into the theoretical framework, the methodological approach and first findings concerning the “role of public urban transport in the context of social inclusion and cohesion”. The PhD has recently been started at the EPFL in Lausanne/Switzerland and is principally based on the case study area of Santiago de Chile. There the national government implemented in February 2007 the new Transantiago system, representing an ambitious approach to substitute the previous rather de-regulated low-quality service by a modern and efficient one. So a new trunk and feeder line network was re-designed from scratch, whose main skeleton is constituted by the existent public metro service and complemented by privately operated bus lines. Unfortunately, the first experiences with the Transantiago have been merely negative, due to a set of technical and institutional problems and further social and cultural obstacles. Even if the national authorities committed to implement all design modifications as soon as possible, some problems are expected to remain also in a long term. Today, the Transantiago presents a hot topic in political debates and everyone’s daily life discussions. After the subsequent theoretical insights, the case study area of Santiago de Chile is presented, describing the urban development framework, the previous transportation service and the main problems related to the new Transantiago system. On this basis the research hypothesizes and objectives as well as the methodological approach are introduced. The final part offers some first findings for the Santiago case and bridges to the conference topic dealing with spatial inequalities due to public action.

2007