French Urban Housing and the Mixed Economy: The Privatization of the Public Sector

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Abstract
This examination of the French experience with public-private or mixed-economy corporations in the area of urban renewal and housing explores the advantages and disadvantages of involving private capital on a for-profit basis in the financing and implementation of certain types of public service. Although urban mixed-economy corporations initially helped the French to address their postwar housing crisis, the private partners to such arrangements have increasingly turned from low-income housing to more profitable ventures. The French case suggests the difficulty of sustaining a social housing program underwritten by private capital.

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