Transformation Brainstorm

“Transformation is a catalytic, irreversible process which is operational social, spatial and institutional levels.”

Irreversible: 

• cant be changed back – cant be undone whereas change is more superficial
• knowledge/capacity > assess the irreversibility
• how to create the condition of irreversibility?
• mainstreaming is the key to irreversibility
• defences? Social justice is always under attack
• what makes it irreversible
• devolution of responsibility shifts power relations

Catalytic:

• Spark > can you trigger it?
• generated from idea (small?)
• unlimited, “cant be used up”
• making things quicker (speed)
• reactionary
• acceleration
• circumstance of the environment that can make a third thing out of two things
• provocative
• enablement
• facilitative
• organisational capacity
• starts a process but is not in itself changed as a result
• what are missing links?
• Conflicting policies – no perfect conditions/multiple catalysts

Process-oriented: 

• Evolving
• knowledge/capacity > assess the irreversibility
• iterative + cyclical
• accumulative (irreversibility)
• incremental
• progressive
• successive/succession

Learning from informal markets: Innovative approaches to land and housing provision; Berner

The migration to the urban areas, particularly in developing countries poses a challenge on international, national and local policy making. In most developing countries the attempts to formalize markets have failed to provide the adequate housing for the ever-growing urban population. Self-help housing and squatting has long been seen as detrimental to sound urban development and planning. In last two decades it has been recognized that self-help housing has a great contribution towards providing a sufficient housing for the urban poor and “it is still the only architecture that works” (Turner, 1976) This form of housing is not only crucial for providing housing for the poor working in the informal sector but it also plays an important role in the urban economy. Without this informal settlements the local economy could not be competitive in the global context.

In the urban context the urban poverty is closely associated with spatial segregation; overcrowding, filth, unemployment, total absence of social services, malnutrition – this representation of poverty is only one-sided and represents only partial reality. To address the issues of urban poverty it is fundamental to recognize that housing needs to meet adequate living standards “as well as cultural definitions of security of tenure as an essential part of a decent standard of living”.  Substandard informal housing has two major issues:1. lack of quality, infrastructure and space and 2. insecurity.

Current policies fail to recognize the importance of providing appropriate land for the housing. Evictions and relocation are justified by governments wanting to beautify and redevelop the cities. These schemes more often than not result in communities repopulation the vacated site. In the case of social housing, the immense expenditures on land and adherence to inappropriate building regulations make the resulting products unaffordable for the urban poor. Since the 70’s slum upgrading and upgrading sites and services are the major approaches to introduce participation and self-help housing into practical policies. It is more efficient to improve the existing settlements that to build new ones, yet the performance and scale of upgrading is disappointing. The upgrades face the inappropriate planning standards and building regulations which increase the public investment and limit the investment to single intervention. In addition the issue of land ownership is a major constrain to redevelopments. The land central to the city is usually to expensive to be populated by the urban poor resulting in relocations. The alternative locations are usually on the periphery, without the adequate transport links to the livelihoods. The prime locations come with the price tag, even the pavement dwellers in India have to pay regular fees to the policemen or syndicates. The informal market plays a significant role in providing housing to the poor. Houses built without permits with a substandard infrastructure and quality, by cutting corners and cost are the only affordable option for the poor. This kind of housing represents an opportunity for the occupant to incrementally improves the home, however the improvements also increase the value of the property which can increase the rent in case of rented properties.

Energy Access in Urban Slums: A case of Khon Kaen, Thailand; Asian Institute of Technology

The article discusses how accessible are modern forms of energy focusing on urban and peri-urban areas of Thailand, the energy consumption patterns and the total energy related expenditures in urban poor and peri urban areas. Secondly it discusses the impact of past and planned energy policies on the current energy situation.

The initial assessment study was primarily focused on Bangkok. In Bangkok and its suburbs electricity is distributed by a single utility, the Metropolitan Electricity Authority (MEA) and in the rest of the country the electricity is distributed by the Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA).” In year 2005, 87.5% of the population had access to grid electricity (DEDE, 2005). 99% of the registered households have electricity connection (AESIEAP, 2007)., Biomass accounts for 33% of the total household energy consumption in Thailand. 57.5% of the households cook with LPG while only 32.8% of households cook with traditional biomass (NSO, 2005b). Renewable energy had a share of 16.9% in the total primary energy supply in year 2004.” the Parliament Office recognises that modern energy sources represent only a small portion of energy consumed in poor areas due to higher cost and limited supply in rural areas.

The two main policies affecting the energy access for the urban poor are policies on household registration and electricity pricing. The household registration is required to apply for different services, including electricity. Majority of slum households do not meet requirements for household registration. According to survey almost 60% of households were not registered( based on Bangkok slums only).

Electricity Pricing Policy

The Metropolitan Electricity Authority provides reduced tariff for households consuming up to an average of 150kWh per month over a period of 3 months; otherwise the household faces the regular tariff. This scheme is only available to registered households. The electricity tariff increases at a higher level than an average income for both poor and non-poor.

House Registration Policy

In 1956 house registration was introduced in Thailand. Currently the house registration is required to access ant type of government services, ie. citizenship, healthcare, education, banking services and electricity connection. In the slums some dwellers do not have house registration which affects their access to the electricity. To overcome this problem, in 1995 the Thai government began to issue temporary registration numbers to those households who do not have permanent registration number. This allowed the households to apply for the legal connection to the electricity supply, however the initial deposit for the electric meter is higher for the temporary registered households. This policy substantially reduced the number of illegal connections (connection through the neighbor) in Thailand. In Bangkok slums 68% of households have a direct connection to the grid and 32% through their neighbors.

Territorialisation and State Power in Thailand; Peter Vandergeest and Nancy Lee Peluso

The article initially elaborates on different work of political geographers in recent years and explains different theories on state powers. Its draws the attention that many of theories do not incorporate the territorial strategies used by modern states in the definitions. Rulers territorialized state power firstly to make claims on territory to protect access to people and income from taxes and natural resources. Secondly territorialisation enabled increased efficiency in collection of regular taxes, which was needed to finance permanent militaries, assess the availability of young men for a conscript military and to finance a growing bureaucracy as well as government investment that sustained local production in context of global competition.

 Territorialisation is described to be about excluding or including people within particular geographic boundaries, and about controlling what people do and their access to natural resources within those boundaries.

In Thai context, the State has divided its territories into complex and overlapping political and economic zones, rearranged people and resources within these units and created regulations delineating how and by whom these areas can be used. In addition the state has increased its capacity and willingness to deploy violent means of land-use control, in part due to its involvement in the global political-economy and the high stakes in the export-led economic growth strategies.

The article focuses specifically on the territorialisation of resources and people in rural areas: 1) The territorialisation of civil administration in rural Thailand 2) state attempts to take over the administration of rights to land through mandatory registration of land titles based on surveys  3) state attempts to control the use of major portions of national territory by demarcating it and defining it as forest.

Bringing Non-Governmental Actors into the Policymaking Process, 2006

Shigetomi, Shinichi. ‘Bringing Non-Governmental Actors into the Policymaking Process:
The Case of Local Development Policy in Thailand’, Discussion Paper No. 69 for the
Institute of Developing Economies, August 2006.
(https://ir.ide.go.jp/dspace/bitstream/2344/149/1/ARRIDE_Discussion_No.69_shigetomi.pdf) Accessed
10 January 2010

Paper discribes the process whereby three leading actors (government, local people & NGOs) have interacted to bring about a more participatory system of local development.  It goes through this development in cronological order through the decades and different types of organisations in Thailand.

In the 1980s:

• Opportunities for local people’s participation, although greater than before, were still limited
• They were able to chose from a list of projects provided by the government
• Non-government actors were not accounted as agents of governance

After the 1990s:  – these developments were made possible by changes in the Thai political and economic environment

• NGOs (and other non-gov’t) actors had opportunities to express their views in the process of planning national social and economic policy
• Non-gov’tal actors sought opportunities to express their ideas at provincial level in the policy formation process
• Local people  have been able to gain access to funds that have been available for implementing their own projects

The above transformations were made possible by the capacity of some key actors

• The human and material resources of the gov’t – in it’s ability to help expand the opportunities for participation by non-gov’tal actors
• The local people themselves have created the conditions in which the extra-bureaucratic network has been able to penetrate to the grassroots, without the need to rely on offical local administration
• NGOs provided some important ideas for this system of participatory governance through networking

Rangsit in transition: urbanisation and cultural adaptation in central Thailand

Sowatree Nathalang

The Chao Phraya Delta: Historical Development, Dynamics and Challenges of Thailand’s Rice Bowl (1999)

This study looks at the effects of ‘modernisation and development’ on the 3 following case studies:  an Old Chinese community, an Old Muslim community and a Modern Workers’ community.

Over a period of 30 years many of the bordering provinces to Bangkok have been affected by urbanisation and find themselves part of a greater cosmopolitan area.  This has attracted many people from wider Thailand and from around the world to the area seeking economic and social opportunities.  This has also brought with it a mix of cultures and identities.  The effects on the landscape have been an increase of industrial plants where agricultural land once was, and an increase in residential and commercial properties.

This study focuses on the cultural and spiritual effects of globalisation and urbanisation.

The rangsit area was a largely agricultural area used for rice farming which then extended to include a variety of crops and plantations.  Its geographical location made it a focus for industry and commercial expansion creating a new urban centre.  The main areas which have facilitated change in the area are the location, the transport links and the price of the land.

Glocalisation – as a concept

This term emerges from two different models; Globalisation and Localisation.  A blending of  cultures has taken place as a result of imperialism leading to a dichotomy  between local and global culture.  Cultural imperialism is of the view that the local culture has been destoyed by the western global culture.  Cultural hybrisation suggests however that it is not possible for culture to be pure, it is always a hybrid, “culture is dynamic, adapted and acculturated”.

Desakota: A new concept of city

These regions are characterised by a mix of “agricultural and non-agricultural activities developed upon a single economic and social plan in close proximity to large urban centres”. The regions will contain strong transport links to major Asian urban areas and include entire cities and their rural-urban and semi-urban peripheral zones.

Changes and adaptation

– Consumerism – consumer goods are affecting peoples’ day to day lives and challenging cultural and value systems

-Labour force from bordering areas are brought to the region by people acting as agents

-Client-patron relationships – can be seen across members of all communities (e.g.landlord – tenant)

-Religious leaders become elevated in their communities, a respected and valued position

– Ethnic roles can change – Muslims who were renters now become landlords, and buddhists who were once landlords can be renters

-The varied role of the Temple has diminished, where it was the first education provider it has been supplanted by the schools; people now prefer malls, pubs and restaurants as meeting places

-The workers community interact through daily consumption needs not through ethnic origin or background

– adaptation vs loss of culture and cultural identity

– Older generation must adapt and compromise to fit in to new pattern of society

– Priorities for younger generation are employment and consuming

– People share similar global capitalist values which are present in the worlds major cities

– There is a lack of community solidarity specifically at the macro level – does there have to a definitive traditional ‘community’?

Residential Mobility in Private Lower-Cost Housing in Bangkok

Savasdisara, Tongchai et alli. ‘Residential Mobility in Private Lower-Cost Housing in Bangkok’, in Housing Studies, Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 250-258.

Summary:

This is essentially a research survey conducted of 13 districts, 20 settlements and 1100 households in Bangkok regarding residential mobility and satisfaction levels in regards to private housing estates in the city; the aim was to balance the existing research on government initiated development (mostly by Western organisations) which essentially analyse the government’s response as opposed to residents’ perspectives. The result of the research study culminated in the creation of a model for low-income countries to explain residential mobility in regards to home ownership and resident satisfaction, in terms of individual dwelling units, estate environment, and the age of the household head.

Notes from the text:

The most influential factors of residents’ satisfaction comprise:

• Physical and environmental aspects of the neighbourhood (public facilities and infrastructure i.e. playgrounds, parks, roads, sidewalk, streetlights at night, waste disposal and collection)
• Quality of dwelling units (number and size of rooms, kitchen and toilet, washing areas, natural light and ventilation)
• Environmental and location (accessibility to work, healthcare, school, shops and markets)
• Social relations (friends and neighbours) – the most powerful factor

The author refers to residential mobility in terms of moving out from the current housing estate.

• Background: socio-economic and attributes of residents & physical and environmental characteristics of neighbourhoods
• Dependent: planning-to-move
• Intervening: residents’ satisfaction

The primary requirements for moving to new estates are improvements and provision of essential services.

Previous studies on government housing assessed the roles of the Government and the NHA: “Early highly subsidised government housing projects have proved inefficient and expensive for government” (p 251).

The most important reasons for loving out of existing estates were either related to social ties or LAND OWNERSHIP.

Even though previous models for analysing residential mobility were conceptualised in the US, they can still be used as basic guidelines.

Theoretical causes for migration:

• Lee (1966) – based on the DECISION-MAKING PROCESS; area of origin, area of destination, personal characteristics, intervening obstacles

Conceptual causes for migration:

• Simon (1957) – based on HUMAN DECISION-MAKING; capacity for formulate and solve problems, acquire and retain information, simplify situation and make a rational decision

Types of stimuli for planning-to-move:

• Rossi (1955) – relationship between housing and mobility; housing complaints, overcrowding, landlord problems, neighbourhood conditions
• Leslie and Richardson (1961) – “physical limitations combined with frustrated aspirations” (ibid)

Behavioural theory:

• Wolpert (1965) – “rational response to a wide range of socio-economic conditions” (ibid); negative and positive evaluations of current and prospective areas affect the decision to move
• Golant (1971) – three variables identified in Wolpert’s theory: environment, individual and interactions between environment and individuals, “When the stress reaches threshold strength, the individual acts” (p 252)
• Speare (1974) – set of background variables: friends and relative index, crowding ratio, age of household heads, duration of residence, property ownership, represent desire to move/stay; intervening variable: RESIDENTIAL SATISFACTION
• Bach and Smith (1977) – elaborated Speare’s model

The districts of the Greater Bangkok area were combined to create the sample area for the survey based the US models. The survey was undertaken between 22 March and 4 May 1986, of household heads who make the most of the decision-making and are family representatives, which meant only weekends were available.

Five factors (also referred to as indices in statistical terms) of housing satisfaction comprise:

• Location (accessibility to workplace, shops, markets, schools, public transport, telephone services, electricity, water and street lights at night)
• Dwelling unit (size and number of rooms, kitchen and laundry, bathroom, ventilation and brightness)
• Environment (noise from neighbours and local area, smoke and odours, cleanliness, roads and walkways, privacy, drainage systems and water supply)
• Public facilities (security and maintenance of estate, public parking, children’s playgrounds, recreational spaces, fire protection and safety)
• Neighbours (attitudes in regards to education, economic status and friendliness)

There were a lot of statistical terminologies including various variables, Lambda, Gamma and Pearson’s product moment correlation coefficients. Tables are used to describe the outcomes of the surveys in respect to these ‘coefficients’.

• Lambda coefficients are nominal measurements of two variables
• Gamma coefficients are measured ordinally
• Pearson’s product correlation coefficient measures intervals

The results comprised a casual model represented background variables, residential satisfaction and planning-to-move. These were outlined in three phases:

• Phase 1 Planning-to-move constraints: exogenous variables; background variables with important links with residential satisfaction and/or planning to move variables
• Phase 2 Residential satisfaction: intervening variable; impact on personal, household and socio-environmental factors, general residential satisfaction
• Phase 3 Planning to move: endogenous variable; two-step questions

Path analysis used in the analysis of causality, “to find out whether the background variables have direct planning-to-move or whether they affect planning-to-move indirectly through residential satisfaction” (p 255).

The most likely reason for moving out was home/property/land ownership as opposed to assumptions of residential satisfaction being the most influential factor. “The strongest influences on plans to move house relates to property ownership, followed by residential satisfaction itself… Suwannodom (1982) found land ownership to be a strong determinant” (p 257).

Mobility becomes more difficult with older age; it is easier when people are younger.

Combining the various regions in Thailand would be equivalent to the size of US city analysis using Western models.

Economic necessity is also quite influential in decision-making as it is important to consider the job opportunities with the home-to-work travel times (ibid).

Ultimately, “good designs may reduce discomforts with these issues even though the price of individual houses remains the same” (ibid).

‘Genealogy of the slum – Pragmatism, politics and locality’

Askew, Marc. ‘Genealogy of the slum – Pragmatism, politics and locality’, Bangkok: Place, Practice and Representation, Routledge, London 2002, p.139-169

This article uses the example of the largest slum in Bangkok, Khlong Toei, to counter simplistic representations of slum communities as generated by academics, government agencies and NGOs in the context of ideological contexts and conflicts. He describes the layered and dynamic framework in which the people of Khlong Toei negotiate space and make the city.

(Khlong Toei seems to actually be one of our group’s sites and the largest and probably most prominent slum site in Bangkok. So this article is important to understand the history, dynamics and role of actors involved in the slums development and fight against eviction, which is described in much detail and with also with a very sober look at dynamics and goals of community organisations.)

Actors mentioned in the text:

• BMA
• NHA
• HSF (Human Settlements Foundation)
• TCUP (Training Centre for the urban poor)
• several governors of Bangkok
• PAT
• DPF (Duang Prateep Foundation) with Prateep Ungsongtham
• Prime Minister Kittichachong
• King
• Khlong Toei Slum Federation
• Grass Roots Development Foundation (by Sompong Patbui, ex DPF)
• SVA (Sotoshu Volunteer Association = Japanese NGO)
• Police
• drug dealers and gamblers
• Human Development Foundation
• NESDB (National Economic and Social Development Board)
• GHB (Government Housing Bank)
• FOP (Forum of the Poor)

Conclusion first:

As we know by know, slums are shaped by and interacting with institutional, economic, social and ideological changes of the context as much as NGOs. Governments etc. People of the slums here are portrayed as: pragmatic and individualistic, linked to locally based social networks, within which status and relationships are important. = Thai culture

Significant NGO presence and the bureaucratic and ideological environment is not necessarily a transformation (we should discuss…) but has given them a new language and new strategies to reach their individual and collective goals of land, capital and status. The meanings they have for them my not be the same as the idealistic aims of the institutions and groups supporting them.

 Introduction: representing the slum:

• Dominant stereotypes and what slums are not; simplification of practices to communities or not-communities: “Cooperative and equally poor low-income households joined together in the task of collective and sustained betterment for income and environmental improvement, joined by NGO partners”; “individualistic opportunists, who, like their urban middle-class counterparts, buy and sell land resources for profit in the marketplace”; “tightly integrated ‘face-to-face’ society, characterised by bonds of kinship, mutual friendship and close emotional links to the local area” = image used for example by DPF and media for public support against eviction
• What they are: “Multilayered economic, social and spatial formations, spaces of survival, accumulation, status and inequality”
• Khlong Toei: The least typical of Bangkoks urban poor settlements (rich slum) but source of slum movement and site of conflict and factionalism.

Economy of the slum – economy of the city:

Accumulation, inequality and dependence:

Sociability and reciprocity:

The contingency of community – locality and bargaining for space:

The right to the city: networks, anti-eviction and new tactics:

Khlong Toei and the politics of locality:

Struggle and identity:

Forces of solidarity:

Social structure and power relations:

Deficits of formal urban land management and informal responses under rapid urban growth, an international perspective.

Note: This article is specifically about African cities but has interesting observations relevant to Thailand.

The central premise of this article is that informality is a response to poor public policy. In the case of Africa, urban land management was practical to European colonialisation, ‘centered on peripheral ports, with access routes to exploitable resources and later to environments deemed suitable for European settlement’. Because this system was not endogenous, post colonial African cities are ‘exploding cities in unexploding economies’. The residual policies, land use controls, regulations, and high standards have led to a slow pace of development and unaffordable housing.

The author lays out three types of urban land markets:

1. formal/official statutory
2. customary/indigenous, and
3. informal/unauthorized or non-statutory.

On can’t develop a piece of land unless his/her rights on that land are legally specified and protected. However, legalisation of ownership is time consuming, complex, cumbersome and expensive for two reasons: one is that mapping, title registration, surveying, etc. setups are poorly developed and the other is because it is within the interests of some individuals to reinforce the inefficiency of the status-quo. As a result “the ‘informality’ of urban land markets…is as much a commentary on the ineffectiveness of existing official land tenure and regulatory arrangements as it is on their growing irrelevance.”

( I think this is really interesting because it has implications for policy development: if you find informal systems, try to figure out which policy they are responding to!)

The author doesn’t exclude completely the need for public intervention in informal land systems. She says while informal markets are good at provision of low-income housing, one must overcome the externalities of development like: water pollution, sanitation/public health hazards, traffic congestion, encroachment of public/open space, etc. in severely dense and chaotic informal subdivisions. Question: how is this accounted for in the Baan Mankong program?

I don’t want to write an essay here so there are three other interesting things to note:

One is the emergence of SCRs(Substandard Commercial Residential Subdivisions) which are illegal commercial supplies of urban land which imitate formal urban layouts and provide rudimentary services like water, electricity, etc. These SCRs are officially permitted and have financial linkages to urban administration. While they provide low service levels, they are also incrementally phased and built as the income of the residents increases. “As observed in SCRs, developers proceed according to the occupation-building-servicing-planning sequence, a reverse of the formal procedure.”

Another interesting thing is an example from Egypt where another author (Zaghloul) identifies 3 phases of informal settlement growth (he says that slums in the same city of different characteristics are generally closer or further along the same chain of growth): starting, boom, and saturation stages. He says the city can intervene before the boom and provide infrastructure or buy land that will later be used for school, public spaces, or other services.

Finally, a quote which I think is super interesting on the merits and demerits of informal land systems: “Informal urbanization not only poses a major threat for the depletion of agricultural land, but also creates a substandard urban product that is plagued with environmental and social problem. Nevertheless, informal urbanization has exhibited singular merits: it responds to the shelter needs of, what the author calls the forgotten segment of the housing demand; it meets the demand of  expectations and affordability of many segments of the population; operated in a market context and manipulates existing market forces and avoids the market distortions of public subsidies and direct supply. The challenge for public policy, therefore is to transform the informal urbanization product into a decent urban space and to utilize the informal development process to respond to the needs of many segments of the population.”

Don’t know about this for sure but maybe the Baan Mankong urbanization product isn’t under enough scrutiny? There’s a lot going on in this article so it’s worth a read especially if you’re doing your dissertation on Africa. Also… SUPER IMPORTANT is that this article talks about policy in a very spatial way. There is section called “Impact of informal urbanization on the Cairo Urban Region space structure” that blows my mind in that it’s exactly how I have trouble thinking/writing but I feel like it’s the kind of thinking/writing that Camillo is trying to get us to do.

Upgrading Housing Settlements in Developing Countries

This paper has a really basic premise: in development studies, slum upgrading is generally favored over redevelopment (demolishment and rebuilding) because slums are characterized under four assumptions:

1. That low-income settlements are in peripheral locations
2. The settlements have a very mixed land use
3. The settlements are clearly and regularly laid out
4. Individual lot sizes within these settlements are “reasonably” large

The author uses the case of Mumbai (and Dharavi!) to show that these assumptions are not universally true:

1. “As a consequence of physical expansion, many low-income housing settlements, in once peripheral and marginal locations, may now occupy a more strategic and central location in the geography of the city.” (as in Dharavi in relation to the Bandra Kurla complex)
2. “…evidence suggests that it is not atypical for slum-pockets to be largely residential in nature, with slum residents working in service sector jobs in the city”
3. “There is… an inherent contradiction between the last two assumptions. While the observation that low-income housing settlements are regularly laid out indicates the presence of commercial pressure and the involvement of market-based entrepreneurs in land subdivision, the same commercial logic suggests that he idea of large lot-sizes is problematic and unsustainable for low-income groups. Thus, the two assumptions are likely to be contradictory, temporally, ie, over time, as urban land gets scarce and more expensive.

This article is important for two reasons (and by the way, it’s really short and really easy to read so I actually suggest it):

1. It describes the spatial similarities between the case of Baan Mankong and Dharavi
2. It challenges the assumptions about slums that we (generally) have been taught until now

Super interesting.

‘Landlordism in Third World Urban Low-income Settlements: A Case for Further Research’

Kumar, Sunil. ‘Landlordism in Third World Urban Low-income Settlements: A Case for Further Research’, in Urban Studies, Vol. 33, Nos. 4-5, 1996, pp. 753-782.

Low income housing policy focussed on promoting owner-occupation despite the fact that low-income settlements are a mix of owners, landlords and tenants. This is due to perception as owners, focus on ownership to promote self-managed processes of housing production, negative experiences of governments in role of social landlords.

Although majority of households seem to prefer to own rather than rent the central issue is question to what extend ownership is accessible to them: cost/access of land, cost of construction. The article is re-evaluating the bias towards ownership and analyses landlordism in low-income settlements.

Is ownership of land a condition for development of landlordism and therefor linked to strategies of owner-occupiers? If renting is profitable, why are not more households landlords?

1)   Implications for development of landlordism through commodity relationships that have raised the cost of ownership:

• Criticism of Turner’s analysis of low-income housing process and mostly unchallenged assumptions that households can mange to consolidate their dwellings by themselves is important in relation to development of landlordism: a) The actual move from renting to ownership depends on the supply of land and the commodification of low-income housing (Burgess) and B) its components: Land, Labour, Building materials, Housing finance
• Land: a) 3 forms of land supply (Baross): non-commercialised (temporary phenomenon), commercialised, administrative = increasingly commodified, b) New patterns: smaller plots and more renter and sharer households (Moser), c) Although access to land is a pre-condition for housing improvement the production process requires consideration of labour materials and finance
• Labour: a) Unpaid labour serves interest of capital, b) Increase in use of skilled labour for durable quality as investments need to be one-off investments
• Building materials: a) 60% – 90% of total cost depending on type of labour, b) often not recycled but produced for exchange, c) Security of tenure and building regulations increase commodity relations in building materials through encouragement of investment and force of investment within a certain timespan and causing price increase
• Housing finance: a) Often focus on finance for land and services, leaving finance of consolidation to individual households, b) Informal sector finance: personal savings or interest-free loans and finance on interest from money-lenders (varying opinions on possibility of savings), c) State self-help housing finance: compulsory mortgage payments for land cost, development charges and building materials and varying debt servicing on loans for maintenance and construction, c) Non-investment after secure tenure was seen as speculation without account of difficulties of repaying loans and competition of expenditure for dwelling consolidation with other consumption. d) Indirect commodification of housing finance in state programs

2)   Need to focus on rental housing markets in low-income settlements and examine the point of view of producer/landlord, not only consumer:

• Residential mobility reacts to constraints, i.e. changing conditions in the market and household demand, not just behavioural model due to household characteristics: Household income, age of household head, favourable location can determine tenure, price of land vs. level of rent, opportunity for ownership at the periphery, Building materials.
• “Constraints exert stronger influence than choice”, choice between owning and renting and kind of each
• Consumers: reasons to remain tenants: difference between migrant poor and urban-born poor, ethnicity and social networks, service levels and their individual access, rent control
• Producers: Landlords: high ratio tenants to landlords > support for production of rental housing should be provided and visible that more complex than a response to demand.

3)   Theoretical understanding of conditions:

• Lack of interest due to: image of profit maximisers although a lot operate on small scale, focus not on complete housing units but self-help approach and owner-occupation, impact of rent control on private provision (rent control as indirect intervention of government due to problem of government landlords with rent arrears and maintenance)
• Rent control: puts cost on landlords either before or as a result, doesn’t ensure enforcement and protection of increase, resulted in very low quality, high up-front payments, discourages the production of new rental housing, brings about a reduction in the return rate on property and therefore deterring investment in the maintenance of stock, can result in change of use
• Reduction of rental housing also through: availability of land and housing finance, regulations on construction, and use and zoning, security of tenure
• Fear of rent control might make production of rental housing invisible
• Factors that influence production of rental housing by individual low-income landlord is different form housing by institutional and commercial landlords, need better understanding why low-income landlords produce housing
• Small profits, obtain security of investment despite absence of formal legality, often not deliberately purchased for rental purposes
• Economic returns: renting as result of comparison of other returns of investment, considerations such as purchase for children or sale, allow intermittent injection of capital, investment in rental property through subdivision, subsistence income, short-term renting out. Considerations other than economic return might be more relevant for low-income landlords

4)   Research questions:

• Nature of low-income landlords?
• The role of the state?
• Actions to stimulate the production of rental housing?