To be quite honest, I'm not even sure how to think about affordable housing. Theoretically, it may be possible to buy a house or even rent one within one's budget but it might be entirely useless because it is so far away from one's workplace, the other costs would make it unaffordable.
But should we define affordable housing necessarily as "home ownership"? If we are, then we are talking about something far more complex than simply shelter/housing because then we'll have to talk about property rights, legacy ownership of urban land, et al. But if we define too broadly, there's no affordable housing problem at all except for those who are homeless and living on the streets. I'd love to know if there is a good framework someone has come up with to think of this issue. On Sun, Apr 28, 2019 at 9:18 AM Shenoy N <[email protected]> wrote: > One question I've always had is, Why is it so hard to have decent > affordable housing? > > To amplify. Technological progress has made virtually all essentials more > abundant, cheaper and better,such as food, clothes, vehicles, appliances, > air travel, everything. Curiously, housing in urban areas has simply grown > more expensive. This is clearly an anomaly and I have no idea why it is so. > The biggest culprit, everyone says, is land cost, because land is scarce. I > really don't think it's all THAT difficult to find land. Let us say we > wanted to house 1 crore people - 10 million - or about 50% of the metro > population in the Mumbai area. If you assume 200 sq ft per person, we'll > need about 200 sq km. The current density in slums, by the way, is about 20 > sq ft per person. > > How much of a strain is 200 km on the city? Well, the metro area is about > 4500 sq km. I don't think it would be very difficult to squeeze out 200 km > out of that . It's less than 5%. And it would house everybody. With labour > and material efficient building technology, even the cost should be less > than what developers incur, if you standardized things. And if you assume > the cost of construction to be Rs. 1000 per sq foot, the entire project > would be 200,000 crore rupees. That's not a large number at Indian Economy > scale. Plus, its an investment, not a hand out. > > Also, the fact that such housing developments will have to be far away from > the city center shouldn't be a deal breaker. There is enough mass transit > technology available. > > What might be the reasons why this isn't happening? > > > Thanks and regards > > Narendra Shenoy > > > > On Sat, 27 Apr 2019 at 10:38, Pooja Sastry <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Hello all! > > > > I would love to hear what the members of this list think of affordable > > housing - certainly from architects (hi Naresh!) and urban policymakers, > > but also everyone here. > > > > In my work as an urban planner, we throw around ideas like affordability > as > > a function of land prices, minuscule floor areas, five times annual > income, > > construction quality and technique - but these, for me, completely miss > the > > mark. I'm a "millennial", renter, and likely never-homebuyer myself, and > I > > don't think it should be a stretch to see housing as an essential, > > accessible (not to mention flexible and time-based) infrastructure > instead > > of a luxury. > > > > Thoughts? > > > > Pooja > > > -- Alok Prasanna Kumar Advocate Ph: +919560065577
