book reviews

This article was downloaded by: [Northeastern University]On: 24 November 2014, At: 12:00Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: MortimerHouse, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

International Journal of Housing PolicyPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/reuj20

book reviewsPublished online: 02 Dec 2010.

To cite this article: (2003) book reviews, International Journal of Housing Policy, 3:2, 217-225

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14616710303618

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) containedin the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make norepresentations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose ofthe Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be reliedupon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shallnot be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and otherliabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to orarising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematicreproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in anyform to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/reuj20

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14616710303618

http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

European Journal of Housing Policy

3(2)

, August 2003, 217–225

European Journal of Housing Policy

ISSN 1461-6718/ISSN 1473-3629 online © 2003 Taylor & Francis Ltdhttp://www.tandf.co.uk/journals

DOI: 10.1080/1461671032000118487

B

OOK

R

EVIEWS

Gert de Roo and Donald Miller (eds) (2000)

Compact Cities and SustainableUrban Development. A Critical Assessment of Policies and Plans from an Inter-national Perspective

. Aldershot: Ashgate. 294 pp. £42.50 (hbk). ISBN 0-7546-15370-5.

This is the most recent of a series of edited volumes on urban environ-mental planning issues, resulting from symposia of the International UrbanPlanning and Environment Association. In this volume, the focus is on oneparticular urban form which has gained considerable popularity as asustainability-enhancing planning strategy since the 1980s: the compactcity. Initially, many professional planners and academics welcomed thecompact city as the most preferable strategy for a more sustainable devel-opment of settlement systems. Meanwhile, however, the compact city idealseems to meet increasing opposition and criticism. Strategies such as raisingthe share of ‘brownfield’ sites in housing construction, intensification ofbuilding and activity densities or stimulating a mix rather than a segrega-tion of functions seem to lose their appeal with planners, politicians, devel-opers and – last but not least – citizens. Moreover, the positive contributionof compact city development to a sustainable urban and regional develop-ment is increasingly doubted, especially when the original broad definitionof sustainability – including not only ecological, but also social, cultural andeconomic dimensions – is taken as the point of departure.

The contributors to this book try to assess the possible merits and draw-backs of compact city development for different dimensions of sustain-ability beyond political or environmental ideologies. De Roo and Miller callfor a more cautious use of the compact city as a strategy for sustainability.Compact urban development should not be ‘. . . simply embraced as aplanning dogma . . .’ and it should not be applied in the same way atdifferent places, since ‘. . . general solutions seldom fit comfortably with theunique features of local situations’ (p. 11). Following the editorial, thecontributions are logically organized around six themes addressing various

REUJ100057.fm 17 Wednesday, August 27, 2003 3:00 PM

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Nor

thea

ster

n U

nive

rsity

] at

12:

00 2

4 N

ovem

ber

2014

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF HOUSING POLICY

218

aspects of compact city development. The first group of papers outlines thedilemmas of the compact city with regard to its possible positive andnegative effects on sustainability. Some of the dilemmas mentioned are thelimits that environmental restrictions often pose to creating higher-densityand mixed-use areas (de Roo), the tensions between environmental sustain-ability and liveability ( Jenks

et al.

), the difficult balance between conserva-tion and development (Lynch and Doak) and the relationship betweenurban form and (sustainable) mobility patterns (Dijst and Snellen

et al.

).Jenks

et al.

stress the importance of consultation and participation ofcitizens when intensification projects are planned. Interestingly, they findthat residential satisfaction is much less connected to high building andactivity densities as such than to changes in density resulting from intensi-fication and redevelopment projects. De Roo points at the dangers ofplanning environmentally intrusive activities close to environmentally sensi-tive functions: ‘Some distance has to be taken into account to keep theseintrusive functions away from environmentally sensitive areas, such as resi-dential areas’ (p. 33). As Burby and Moore argue in their contribution onindustrial sites in compact communities, the problems of locating heavyindustry near residential areas lie not only in objective hazards of living nearsites of heavy industry, but also in the risk perception of neighbourhoodinhabitants that is often underestimated by advocates of compact urbanisa-tion: ‘The perception of threats, rather than their absolute magnitude andproximity, plays a larger role in how people evaluate safety’ (p. 134).

In the following parts, some of these dilemmas of compact city develop-ment are worked out in more detail. Four papers are dealing with thepossible contribution of urban renewal and redevelopment in three typesof areas: post-war city extensions, historic inner city districts and formerindustrial sites. Particularly interesting is the contribution of Meyer on the‘polluter pays’ principle that has become very popular in dealing withcontaminated sites in Europe and the US. As simple and justified as thisprinciple might sound, so complex is its application in practice. Seriousproblems are to determine who is the ‘real’ polluter (there are often manymore parties involved than only the polluting company), and to establish afair distribution of the costs of cleaning up the contaminated site. Twoother major sustainability issues reviewed more extensively are the impor-tance of public participation and the impacts of (automobile) traffic oncities. As the contributions of Leitmann

et al.

and Washington demonstrate,especially the voice of poor people in disadvantaged neighbourhoods (bothin developed and in developing countries) often remains unheard indecisions on the location of heavy industry. Holsen also warns for too highexpectations of public participation as being representative for all stake-holders involved: ‘Both cultural background and structural biases of powershould be expected to lead to situations where some opinions are notrepresented’ (p. 223). Concluding the book are three contributions

REUJ100057.fm Page 218 Wednesday, August 27, 2003 3:00 PM

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Nor

thea

ster

n U

nive

rsity

] at

12:

00 2

4 N

ovem

ber

2014

REVIEWS

219

providing empirical evidence that relationships between urban density,travel distances, energy use and pollution do indeed exist, and three paperson possible strategies to deal with these spatial effects of (car) traffic.

The book offers a good overview of arguments in favour of and againstthe possible contributions of compact city development to urban andregional sustainability. Moreover, a wide array of aspects of sustainableurban development, including some dimensions rarely covered in scientificand political discussions on sustainability, is presented. The empiricalresults included in many of the contributions contribute to an objectivetesting of assumptions on the effectiveness and desirability of compact citydevelopment that might often be more based on idealism or ideology thanon facts. As the editors themselves already indicate (p. 11), the contribu-tions are mainly oriented to the developed countries, which raises questionsabout the degree to which compact city development would also be arelevant strategy for developing countries. The extreme environmental andhealth problems that disadvantaged cities or neighbourhoods in devel-oping countries face (addressed by Leitmann

et al.

) would have deservedmore than just one contribution. In addition, the critical view on thecompact city as a sustainability-enhancing development strategy makes onewonder about the possible alternatives. Would other urban formscontribute more to a sustainable local and regional development, or is therole of urban form in sustainability overestimated so far? The contributionsof the book focus heavily on local initiatives and policies, while regionalapproaches of sustainable development might offer a part of the solutionto the dilemmas of the compact city. This might be an interesting point ofdeparture for a next volume of the series.

M. A. Bontje, Amsterdam Study Centre for theMetropolitan Environment, Amsterdam

Roelof Verhage (2002)

Local Policy for Housing Development: European Experi-ences

. Aldershot: Ashgate Press. 314 pp. £45.00. ISBN 0-7546-1824-2.

This is a book which helps to plug the gap in the literature on Europeanhousing development. Whereas much of the comparative research inhousing has been focused on policy questions, there has been relativelylittle done on housebuilding, planning and decision-making at the locallevel. It is particularly well timed as a piece of research that builds on andupdates the work carried out during the 1980s and early 1990s, looking atEuropean

Urban Land and Property Markets

(UCL Press series, and Dieterich

et al.

1993). Since then, there have been significant changes to land andplanning policy which the case studies in this book usefully highlight.

The book compares housing developments from four countries: theNetherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany and France. Previous research


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Nor

thea

ster

n U

nive

rsity

] at

12:

00 2

4 N

ovem

ber

2014


220

(ibid.; Barlow and Duncan 1994; Golland 1998) has shown how these fourcountries provide a sufficiently different land and planning policy contextagainst which local housing development outcomes can be judged. Thebook selects small to medium-sized housing development case studies foreach of the countries spanning the period from the mid-1980s to the late1990s. It places particular emphasis on the institutional context and thepower relations between land owners, local authorities and developers. Inthis approach, there is a good attempt to stick closely to the frameworkposited earlier by Healey (1992).

The book will be of interest to both practitioners involved in housingdevelopment as well as to academic specialists in the field. It describes insome detail a range of land assembly models which should be of interest inseveral different policy contexts. Whilst showing that ‘market’ solutions, asevidenced particularly in the case of the UK, can be an efficient way ofbringing land forward, the book also describes a number of other moreinterventionist modes of land assembly. These are encompassed in morecomprehensive solutions, for many years a Dutch norm, and in models suchas (statutory and voluntary) ‘

Umlegung

’ found in Germany. This latterapproach is a form of land ‘pooling’, where land assembly is facilitated byowners agreeing to join forces for the purposes of taking advantage of thegrant of planning permission.

The book has a strong theoretical angle. It gives serious attention to theissue of comparative housing analysis in general, and looks at its challengesin the light of the housing development process. This approach reveals avery thorough review of the key literature. The method of investigation is,however, rather complex and does not entirely illuminate the nature of therelationship between different policy stances and housing developmentoutcomes. In part, this is due to an approach to analysis based at a locallevel. Much of the previous work in this field has made more of thesignificance of national planning policies, national housebuilding indus-tries and property markets. This book looks to draw on country differencesby way of selected development examples at a local level. From this stand-point, it is difficult to draw out the generalities of the findings whichcomparative studies have the potential to do.

This is not to say that the aims of the book, ‘to investigate how duringthe process of housing development decisions are taken that influence theresidential environment’ (p. 237) are not achieved. The book representsan excellent empirical study. The findings are supported very robustly viavery detailed descriptions of the way in which public and private sectoragencies interact. There is detailed financial data for each of the casestudies and this is used very efficiently to show how development gain isfought over and divided between the various development agencies. Thisaspect should be of key interest to policy-makers who are charged withmaximizing planning gain.


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Nor

thea

ster

n U

nive

rsity

] at

12:

00 2

4 N

ovem

ber

2014

REVIEWS

221

If there is a difficulty for the reader, it may be with the theoreticalframework adopted. This is in places highly intricate with many, sometimescompeting, theoretical standpoints being forwarded. There is much meritin the application of an ‘institutional’ approach (p. 12) to an analysis of thedevelopment process as there is with the ‘agency-structure’ framework(p. 13). Triangulating these explanatory vehicles with the residual landvaluation process (p. 79) in the preferred ‘institutional and economic’framework (p. 247) is a difficult challenge, however, as there is implicitly agood deal of abstract concept to be brought to bear on a practical localdevelopment process.

The book nevertheless deals with several important emerging housingdevelopment themes. It shows, via the case studies, how the quality of theresidential development environment can be enhanced by the planningprocess; it shows how the scope for local authorities to obtain planning‘gain’ is balanced between public and private sector players and it showshow the planning system can be used to control both the volume andtenure of new housing produced. These are key questions facing allEuropean governments at the current time.

In summary, the book makes a very useful contribution to the currentdebate on planning and housing development in Europe and with theextensive empirical research findings represents good value for money.

REFERENCES

Barlow, J. and S. Duncan. 1994.

Success and Failure in Housing Provision: EuropeanSystems Compared

. Oxford: Pergamon Press.Dieterich, H., E. Dransfeld and W. Voss. 1993.

Funktionsweise städtischer Bodenmärktein Mitgliedstaaten der Europäischen Gemeinschaft: ein Systemvergleich

. Budesminis-terium für Raumordnung, Bauwesen und Städtebau, Pullheim: Lottmann.

Golland, A. 1998.

Systems of Housing Supply and Housing Production in Europe

. Alder-shot: Ashgate.

Healey, P. 1992. ‘An Institutional Model of the Development Process’.

Journal ofProperty Research

9: 33–44.UCL Press,

Urban Land and Property Markets

. London: UCL Press.

Andrew Golland, Centre for Residential Development,Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham

Chris Paris (ed.) (2001)

Housing in Northern Ireland – and Comparisons withthe Republic of Ireland

. Coventry: Chartered Institute of Housing. 197 pp.£20.00. ISBN 1-903208-01-7.

Housing in Northern Ireland – and Comparisons with the Republic of Ireland

aimsto provide an introductory text on housing issues, policy and managementin Northern Ireland, set within the wider context of the UK and the


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Nor

thea

ster

n U

nive

rsity

] at

12:

00 2

4 N

ovem

ber

2014


222

Republic of Ireland. Northern Ireland’s distinctive social, political and legalhistory has produced unique arrangements for housing policy, making forinteresting and valuable discussion and comparison. This is a particularlytimely publication, as the emergence of new forms of governance underthe recently created assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Irelandhas brought debates on the diversity of housing systems within the UK tothe fore.

With contributions from fourteen authors, this book comprises elevenconcise chapters. Paris’s introductory chapter gives a broad overview of thechanging governance and politics of Northern Ireland and the corre-sponding shifts in housing policy, setting the scene for the subsequentchapters. Three broad episodes of Northern Irish housing policy are identi-fied, beginning with the devolved Stormont Parliament which lasted forabout fifty years after the partition of Ireland in 1922. This form of devolvedgovernment had considerable freedom to determine a wide range of policiesincluding education, health, social services, policing and housing. However,civil rights campaigns in the late 1960s and early 1970s focused on discrim-ination towards Catholics, including the gerrymandering of local electoralboundaries and discrimination in employment and housing. This led to theabolition of the Stormont Parliament and the introduction of ‘direct rule’.Most of the contested local government functions were centralized, by-passing local elected representatives. The Northern Ireland Housing Exec-utive (NIHE) was established in 1971 as a housing agency with responsibilityfor strategic planning, social housing provision and urban renewal for thewhole of Northern Ireland. The third episode of housing policy arrived withthe establishment of the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont, a multi-party power-sharing executive. The Housing Executive remains the strategichousing agency, although most new social housing construction is nowundertaken by housing associations. However, the future directions ofhousing policy in Northern Ireland remain difficult to predict in the contextof continuing debate and the rapidly changing housing system.

Murie reviews the development of housing policy in Northern Irelandfrom 1945 to 1990, which has been ‘. . . marked by major dislocations anddramatic shifts in approach’ (Murie, p. 34), often in direct contrast withdevelopments elsewhere in the UK. From innovation in early publichousing prior to partition, a more

laissez-faire

policy was adopted by theStormont Parliament between 1920 and 1970, followed by a period of majorinnovation, reorganization and change, re-establishing Northern Ireland’sinterventionist policy regime. By the end of the 1980s, the expansion of thepublic sector’s role in housing provision had ended but real improvementshad been achieved.

This theme of improvement is taken up by McPeake, who outlines thetransformation of housing conditions in Northern Ireland. Heavier publichousing investment than the rest of the UK contributed to the reversal of


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Nor

thea

ster

n U

nive

rsity

] at

12:

00 2

4 N

ovem

ber

2014

REVIEWS

223

the situation inherited by the NIHE in the early 1970s, whereby NorthernIreland had some of the worst housing conditions in the UK.

The distinctiveness of Northern Ireland’s housing market is highlightedby Adair, McGreal and Young in their discussion of ‘the changing housingmarket’. Key trends included growth in home ownership and increasinghouse prices, which is attributed to the improving economic situation fromthe mid-1990s and supply- and demand-side factors, perhaps helped by thepeace process.

Fascinating insights into ‘social conflict and housing policy’ in NorthernIreland are provided by Murtagh. A technocratic, ‘colour-blind’ approachcharacterized housing management from the early 1970s, as the NIHEdistanced itself from the discrimination associated with pre-reform localgovernment housing. Any engagement with the language of conflict orsectarianism was avoided, earning the NIHE a reputation as an objective,fair and efficient organization. However, the reorientation of the NIHEfrom the late 1990s, towards more strategic, facilitating and enabling roles,has been accompanied by increasing recognition of the housing implica-tions of community division, territorialism and violence and the impor-tance of community relations. The issue of sensitizing professional practiceto difference and preference is highlighted, which has much wider rele-vance than Northern Ireland.

Changes in the management of social housing in Northern Ireland arediscussed by Gray and Campbell, some of which are specific responses tolocal factors, while others mirror developments in housing management inthe rest of the UK and the Republic of Ireland. A wide range of issues areconsidered, including the adoption of more business-orientated manage-ment techniques, increasing tenant participation and the shift towards amore strategic and enabling role for the NIHE.

This shift in the role of the NIHE has been accompanied by an expandedrole for housing associations in the provision of social housing. The origins,activities and governance of housing associations are discussed andcompared with the Republic of Ireland by Mackay and Williamson. Thehousing association sector in Northern Ireland is still relatively small,managing 2.6 per cent of the housing stock in 2000. However, it wasdecided in the late 1990s that housing associations would be the mainagents of Northern Ireland’s development programme, with the NIHEassuming regulatory and enabling functions.

Gender and housing management are discussed by Heenan, with a re-vealing assessment of how women have fared within the main bodies re-sponsible for the provision of public housing at different times. TheNorthern Ireland Housing Trust adopted the Octavia Hill system ofhousing management shortly after its formation in the mid-1940s. Ex-clusively female housing managers were employed, who were trained,highly skilled and professional. Women fared far worse under the NIHE


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Nor

thea

ster

n U

nive

rsity

] at

12:

00 2

4 N

ovem

ber

2014


224

and, by the mid-1990s, women were badly under-represented at upper levelsof housing management. More recently, women have been representedmuch more strongly in housing associations than in the NIHE, a differencepartly explained by the male organizational culture and the rigid, hierar-chical structure of the NIHE.

Two contributions focus exclusively on housing issues in the Republic ofIreland. Galligan focuses on the polarized nature of the Republic ofIreland’s housing system that has been exacerbated by the rise of its ‘CelticTiger Economy’ in the 1990s. In the wake of unprecedented increases inhousing demand, the key issues of housing affordability and accessibilityhave come to the fore. This chapter outlines some of the measures intro-duced to address these issues, which have retained the traditional policy-bias towards promoting owner-occupation. Regarding social housing in theRepublic of Ireland, local authorities gained a reputation in the 1980s for‘administering’ rather than managing their housing stocks. O’Connelldiscusses measures introduced from the mid-1990s to improve the localauthorities’ housing management performance and constraints thatcontinue to hinder good practice.

This book is a timely and valuable contribution, providing a mine ofinformation on housing policy in Northern Ireland and raising importantquestions regarding the future directions of housing policy for NorthernIreland. However, some relatively minor points detracted from this text.There was a strong focus on the social-rented sector, with the relativeneglect of owner-occupation and private-renting, which may be of particu-lar interest in the context of the increasing popularity of home ownershipin Northern Ireland. Furthermore, the effort to draw comparisons with theRepublic of Ireland seemed a little too ambitious and perhaps beyond thescope of this text. Few of the chapters offered detailed comparisons.Although two commendable chapters dealing exclusively with the Republicof Ireland were included, they did not seem well integrated into the bookas few references were made to Northern Ireland. Given the current livelydebate on housing issues in the Republic of Ireland, a more systematic andanalytical comparison would probably have been more appropriate.

Vanda Clayton, Department of Geography, Trinity College, Dublin

Michael Ball (2002)

RICS European Housing Review 2002

. London: RICSPolicy Unit. 128 pp.

Compared with the original 1999 edition, the current annual

RICS EuropeanHousing Review

has improved in various ways: the volume increased from 86to 128 pages, the format changed from B5 to A4 and the quality of thelayout is considerably better. Last but not least, the report is now availablefree of charge from the publishers.


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Nor

thea

ster

n U

nive

rsity

] at

12:

00 2

4 N

ovem

ber

2014

REVIEWS

225

This latest edition provides a compact description of recent develop-ments on housing and financial markets of most EU countries (exceptLuxembourg and Portugal, but Switzerland is included). While the mainfocus is on national (and regional) housing markets and on mortgagefinancing, trends and changes in housing policy are also considered.

The report was prepared with the assistance of various expert contributors.It provides compact and fairly comprehensive basic information, recentdevelopments being dealt with more extensively. Whereas treatment of thoseis quite up to date (followed up until late 2001) the coverage of anticipatedfuture market behaviour clearly reflects the uncertainties involved.

For each country, useful basic statistical data are compiled in a standardfactfile format. The provision of more detailed statistics varies dependingon availability, i.e. on material from national or regional statistical officesand their sometimes individualistic approach to data collection. Therefore,cross-national comparative reading is somewhat hampered. Also, the useful-ness of data stated in national currencies could be improved upon by theinclusion of euro equivalents.

Information sources and further literature are provided for some coun-tries, but it would be desirable to find references of this kind for allcountries covered by the review as some readers might wish to find moreextensive or detailed material.

Difficulties arise in the treatment of countries where the implementationof housing policy is a regional responsibility, like in Belgium. In this case,the review provides relatively little information on the Wallonia (andBrussels) regions.

Given the scope of the report, certain minor slips are almost inevitable(e.g. Table 7.2 does not correspond to the text, the data in Table 8.1 donot seem to refer to Germany). Also, formal rights are sometimes inacces-sible in reality. For instance, the right-to-buy option of tenants in Austrianlimited-profit housing (p. 17) introduced in 1993 is subject to certainminimum initial payments by tenants for the corresponding share of land.Promoters sometimes refuse acceptance of such payments, therebyavoiding any tenant option to buy at a later date.

Overall, this review is a valuable source of up-to-date information,especially for active market participants such as investors, realtors, surveyorsetc., as well as for academic readers interested in a compact presentationof recent housing market developments in EU countries.

However, on a more general level, housebuilding activity and its ups anddowns are not an end in itself and therefore ought to be viewed againstcurrent actual housing consumption and against foreseeable future demo-graphic and housing stock developments (maintenance, renovation andreplacement needs).

Christian Donner, Schlimekgasse 15 A–1230 Vienna/Austria


Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Nor

thea

ster

n U

nive

rsity

] at

12:

00 2

4 N

ovem

ber

2014

book reviews

Documents