Housing Markets and Policies Under Fiscal Austerity

The book is timely, and the arguments easy to follow . . . extensive references accompany each title. Choice A most valuable overview of the responses of the housing sector in different countries to changing local priorities. This volume clearly demonstrates the substantial and uneven consequences of recent trends toward greater fiscal restraint. L. S. Bourne, Center for Urban and Community Studies, University of Toronto The past 15 years have witnessed a period of fiscal austerity in North America and Western Europe. This period of financial restraint has been accompanied by shifts in government housing policy and private investment in housing. This important collection of original articles on the subject will be of great significance to geographers, urban planners, urban economists, and all others interested in recent trends in housing policy. Risa Palm, Professor of Geography, University of Colorado

?A collection of papers prepared for a 1986 Netherlands Conference on Housing Research and Policy Issues. Primary attention is paid to Great Britain, but the articles also cover policy developments in the US, Canada, Australia, France, and other European countries. There is even a rare critique of housing policy behind the Iron Curtain. The book is a chronicle of declining state involvement in housing. In country after country the authors observe a withdrawal of government support of housing production and a shift in public-policy emphasis toward consumption support. The rationale for supporting individuals rather than buildings is to provide assistance for groups with special needs, but by and large the authors conclude that equity problems have been worsened rather than ameliorated by the change in orientation of housing policy. That is, the common view here is that the widespread switch from production to individual subsidies is actually a mask for decrease in public commitment to housing for the less well off. The book is timely, and the arguments easy to follow ... extensive references accompany each title. Undergraduate and graduate collections.?-Choice, ?A most valuable overview of the responses of the housing sector in different countries to changing local priorities. This volume clearly demonstrates the substantial and uneven consequences of recent trends toward greater fiscal restraint.?-L.S. Bourne, Centre for Urban and Community Studies, University of Toronto, "A most valuable overview of the responses of the housing sector in different countries to changing local priorities. This volume clearly demonstrates the substantial and uneven consequences of recent trends toward greater fiscal restraint."-L.S. Bourne, Centre for Urban and Community Studies, University of Toronto, "A collection of papers prepared for a 1986 Netherlands Conference on Housing Research and Policy Issues. Primary attention is paid to Great Britain, but the articles also cover policy developments in the US, Canada, Australia, France, and other European countries. There is even a rare critique of housing policy behind the Iron Curtain. The book is a chronicle of declining state involvement in housing. In country after country the authors observe a withdrawal of government support of housing production and a shift in public-policy emphasis toward consumption support. The rationale for supporting individuals rather than buildings is to provide assistance for groups with special needs, but by and large the authors conclude that equity problems have been worsened rather than ameliorated by the change in orientation of housing policy. That is, the common view here is that the widespread switch from production to individual subsidies is actually a mask for decrease in public commitment to housing for the less well off. The book is timely, and the arguments easy to follow ... extensive references accompany each title. Undergraduate and graduate collections."-Choice

WILLEM VAN VLIET is Associate Professor of Urban and Community Studies at Pennsylvania State University and currently is a visiting professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder.