Distinctiveness of Housing Systems in the Global South: Relevance of a Social Housing Approach to Meet Housing Needs

This theoretical paper defines the distinctiveness of housing systems in the Global South. It argues that one should be careful when applying the ‘Social Housing’ approach to the Global South and that this is attributable to the significant divergences in housing systems between the Global South and Europe. Subsequent to paying attention to such distinctiveness, the paper examines how the notion of ‘social housing’, as realized in Europe, has been applicable to the Global South to meet the housing needs for disadvantaged households. Therefore, the main question of this paper is how the notion of ‘social housing’, as realized in Europe, has been relevant to the Global South. To study various housing systems, the paper finds its inspiration in both the convergence approach, to look at unitary similarities between the housing systems in the Global south, and the divergence approach, to focus on distinctiveness as the dominant feature of housing systems in the Global South, in comparison with European countries. Looking at different housing systems around the world, the paper attends to the long-established debate about the notion and purpose of social housing, that is, conventionally, direct intervention of the state in housing provision targeting at particular group(s) of society; whether social housing is primarily a safety net to accommodate the least well off in society; or a system to provide massive subsidized homes for the rather better off people in a unitary housing market. The history of social housing in the Global South is rather short compared to the European praxis. In most countries in the Global South, social housing schemes initiated in the second half of the 20th century. Nonetheless, social housing has been just complementary to other types of housing provision. Although there are generic similarities between housing systems in all countries, especially so in the post-modernism period, this paper recognizes five distinctive facts (characteristics) of the housing systems in the Global South. It is argued that if it is supposed to apply ‘social housing’ approach in the housing system of those countries, it is necessary that these facts to be considered in depth. Those are: (a) the contradiction of globalization; (b) the notion of the developmentalist state; (c) the importance of informality; (d) the decisive role of family in societal structure; and (e) the rudimentary welfare systems and the dissimilarity of the labor markets. By making a link between each of these characteristics and the notion of social housing, as it evolved in industrialized European countries, this paper concludes that it is not possible to apply the approach of social housing to the housing systems in the Global South in a straightforward way. There is a new wave of attention to the provision of social housing around the Global South, to meet the overall accelerating housing needs that stem from fast growing urbanization, demographic change and unaffordability of housing market. The paper concludes that collaborative and innovative social housing schemes that are rooted in the indigenous social-political context can still play a decisive role in increasing affordability to meet unmet needs of housing.