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Introduction
The significance of an adequate supply of housing at affordable prices for the social well-being of people in any society cannot be overemphasized. Indeed, research and the Healthy Cities Movement have established a strong relationship between housing, good health, productivity and socio-economic development. People's inherent right to shelter is thus a basic fundamental need which should not be denied anyone, and the provision of decent housing and related infrastructure in a suitable environment and at affordable prices to all requiring them should be the hallmark of every civilized society and one of the criteria for gauging development.
In spite of its significant role, housing provision still remains one of the most intractable problems facing mankind, society's spectacular scientific and technological advancements notwithstanding. This paradox was succinctly expressed by the late Charles Abrams in the early 1960s when he wrote (1964):
The technical genius that broke the secrets of light has not been able to produce enough housing for the rank and file ... Modern computers may pour out the calculus of housing, but solutions elude electronics.
This sentiment, although expressed three decades ago, is to a great extent as valid today as it was then, for despite all the innovations which were brought into housing development by research institutions, engineers, architects, planners, developers and financiers in the past 30 years, housing still remains the most expensive single item on the budget of most households and the "perpendicular bisector" which divides Canadian society into the "possessed" and "dispossessed." The situation has been worsened by the fiscal crisis of the state which has resulted in cuts to social services including government investment in social housing.
Approach to housing policy: Theoretical perspectives
Since shelter is no doubt important to society, the ultimate aim of any housing policy or strategy is to improve quality, quantity and access to it. Nonetheless, the approach to policy making is determined by the kind of ideology underpinning government policy in general. Basically there are two competing yet overlapping models with several variants in between:
in the pure capitalist economies, at least theoretically, housing resource allocation is governed largely by the information channels and incentives of the price mechanism; while, on the other hand,
in the socialist or welfare states, housing policy is...