The performance of national housing systems a three‐nation comparison

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Abstract
Comparative housing analysis has so far devoted little attention to assessing the performance of national housing systems. The paper argues that more rigorous means of making such assessments are required, not least as an aid to policy making. This in turn means that more explicit statements of housing objectives need to be worked out in order to identify agreed judgemental criteria. The term ‘housing problem’ also requires a more comprehensive definition which recognises that the provision of adequate and accessible housing is a crucial infrastructural benefit to local economies. One way to compare the performance of housing arrangements is to analyse the provision response when rapid employment growth and restructuring produce especial pressures in an area. Using a three‐dimensional conceptual model, the paper presents findings on the extent to which housing provision in three areas, parts of Berkshire, Toulouse and Stockholm, has coped with the rapid employment growth and change of the 1980s. The Swedish and French systems appear to have coped better than the British. On the basis of these empirical findings, the paper finally proposes one possible set of housing objectives.