The housing provision chain as a comparative analytical framework

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Abstract
This article argues a number of points, some to do with comparative analysis and some with political choices. In relation to comparative housing study it argues that: Ex‐socialist systems in transition are seeking to learn partly by drawing on western housing experience; comparative study to form the basis for this learning depends upon a sound analytical framework; the Housing Provision Chain model provides one such framwork; the “private/public” division is better seen as a “democratic/non‐democratic division”; the various stages of the Chain and the various forms of subsidy input need to be clearly separated out. In relation to policy‐making it argues that: The notion of housing provision by “free market plus safety net” is fallacious; all western markets are carefully regulated; the central financial question concerns the distribution of state support between supply and demand side subsidies; the central political question concerns the distribution of power, money and initiative between the Democratic and Non‐democratic sectors; the questions of the optimal tenure mix needs to be approached pragmatically not ideologically.