Urban Studies

This paper summarises William G. Grigsby's contribution to our understanding of neighbourhood change. We discuss seven contributions among Grigsby's most-lasting. First, he staked out the boundaries of the still-nascent field very early in his career. Secondly, he situated the subject within the broader framework of metropolitan housing market dynamics. Thirdly, he developed a theoretical framework for investigating the subject that featured the analysis of housing sub-markets, the market process of neighbourhood succession, and residential segregation. Fourthly, he identified the economic, social, institutional and demographic forces that create neighbourhood change. Fifthly, he linked neighbourhood decline and deterioration to the spatial concentration of poverty. Sixthly, he underscored the significance of this understanding for formulating public policies to deal with deteriorated neighbourhoods. And seventhly, he provided a remarkably complete and robust framework for analysing neighbourhood change. This last-mentioned contribution is the culmination of his lifetime work and will prove perhaps to be his most significant. It provides a road map to future research on neighbourhood dynamics that others may wish to follow. It is very important to note that Grigsby's contributions are so foundational to the modern field of housing economics and housing policy that many of the first-generation analysts like John Kain, John Quigley, William Wheaton, Richard Muth and Anthony Downs do not bother to cite his works. Grigsby's contributions have become ingrained in the core of housing policy. The paper concludes by noting that Grigsby did not let the state of technology or the availability of data limit his vision. As a result, his ideas about neighbourhood change remain fresh and will remain important for years to come.

The paper reviews post-war developments in the theory of housing sub-markets and filtering, emphasising the seminal conceptual and empirical contributions provided by William Grigsby. The study discusses the implications associated with these models with respect to formulating housing policy in a market-dominated economy.

Housing quality has improved dramatically for most low-income households, but they are paying much larger shares of their income for it. Many discussions of the bottom of the market focus on either the rising costs (the 'bad' news) or the rising quality (the 'good' news). Both points of view have some merit. This paper takes a positivist approach to the question: what's happening to the bottom of the housing market. We use a variety of indicators to look at whether the supply of low-cost units has fallen. We then focus on whether this dwindling supply reflects a market failure. If the market for low-income housing is indeed failing, we would observe: relatively high prices per unit of housing services provided by low-quality housing; obstructions to the supply of low-cost housing, which arises largely from filtering; and high vacancy rates. We find evidence of market failure in some markets but not in others. Finally, we focus on one possible source of market failure—excessive regulation—to see whether it is a common thread across those markets that have difficulty producing low-cost housing.

This article examines the inefficacy of the present legal form of local government in the US. This inefficacy manifests itself by providing no solid legal mooring for the power of local government while contributing to regional economic inequalities. In an attempt to address this problem, the author suggests realigning local government to the neighbourhood level while constructing a new tier of government to mitigate the negative economic consequences of such realignment.

Urban planners have become increasingly aware of the importance of implementation in the formulation of policy. This concern has guided on-going efforts of the Urban Simulations and Information Systems Laboratory (SIMLab) at the University of Colorado in developing interactive three-dimensional planning simulations and games. These simulations are used as decision-making tools to help neighbourhood residents to help themselves in making decisions that shape the housing and communities where they live. The present paper describes the conceptual aspects behind the development of these tools, applies the tools to the redevelopment of the Cole neighbourhood in Denver, Colorado, and critiques the limitations of the tools and discusses their future applications.

This paper examines the 'global competition' aspects of housing policies and the implications of an emerging 'flexible' economic order for housing markets in advanced economies. An overview is given of movements in international patterns of growth and trade, including a review of the effects on labour and housing markets of increased competition from less developed, and newly industrialised, countries. UK labour market experience is examined, along with the responses of, and implications for, housing systems and policies. Emphasis is placed on the need to understand the connections between global economic change and regional/local housing systems when designing housing policy. The paper underlines the importance of integrating housing strategies with national competition policy.

Typical measures of the affordability of home-ownership are based on aggregate data that ignore the distribution of incomes and wealth and the range of house prices. An analysis of household survey data provides a means for overcoming those problems; however, numerous conceptual and methodological issues are involved in the use of survey data to measure affordability. This paper builds on previous analyses of those issues by Grigsby and Rosenburg and others and proposes a borrowing constraint method. That method is applied to household survey data from 1989/90 for Sydney and Melbourne, Australia. The paper simulates hypothetical changes in minimum deposit requirements and interest rates. Among its other findings, the paper concludes that, under any of the scenarios considered, only small percentages of renting households would have been able to afford home-ownership without putting themselves into poverty.

German home-ownership rates are significantly lower than home-ownership rates in other nations. Perhaps attributable to several reasons, the ownership differential has become a major housing policy concern. This paper analyses the typical liquidity constraints for first-time home-buyers. It is well known that these constraints largely depend on the rate of inflation and result in credit rationing for investors whose income expectations are high but whose capital endowments are poor. Typically, this is the case for young families. Recently, German tax benefit schemes to promote home-ownership were rescheduled to avoid discrimination against young households. Still, the schemes place a high burden on public budgets. By contrast, the German Housing Policy commission proposed a scheme of home-ownership finance that combines private finance with a public pledge to overcome credit rationing. This paper examines the new proposal and its social, economic and fiscal implications.

The Netherlands has a large and differentiated stock of social rented dwellings, forming more than 40 per cent of the total housing stock. Housing associations are by far the largest providers of housing services in this sector. Traditionally, these associations were subsidised heavily but since 1995 Dutch government has no longer directly subsidised these associations. This paper deals with changes in Dutch housing associations in a period (1988-95) characterised by government austerity, deregulation, market conformity, privatisation and promotion of home-ownership. It is explained how the housing associations were able to survive and even maintain prospects for a promising future in a political climate that threatened the social rented sector. It is clear that housing associations can now operate more independently than in the past. This is seen as a positive development, but the government is now discovering the drawbacks of complete privatisation. A firmer embedding in a public framework is considered desirable now. Recently the cabinet introduced a strengthening of public supervision. The housing associations' umbrella organisations presented their own National Housing Programme and published a business code for housing associations. A crucial issue has not been discussed so far: who will subsidise the housing investments for low-income households in periods of economic stagnation?

This paper discusses the hypothesis that, despite numerous similarities between Canada and the US in terms of their history, geography, life-style, living standard and democratic form of government, there are nonetheless significant differences between the two countries' social policies that translate into differences in several of their housing and related urban policies. Here the case is made that variations in each country's approach to housing result from differences in their founding principles and from their historical experiences.

Major changes are underway in the American programme to aid mothers with dependent children. One major component of the proposed changes is a work requirement for mothers. To begin to explore what problems and opportunities may be created by a work requirement, this paper explores several questions related to the work and earnings' experience of a cohort of 42 000 aid recipients in an urban county. Among the several findings is the fact that about 70 per cent of the welfare recipients have recent work experience. For some, the experience is limited; for others, especially those known to have left welfare, it is extensive. The earnings produced from work range from basically pocket change to well in excess of US$16 500 per year. The implications for policy changes vary with one's perspective. What is clear is that some recipients can earn more than welfare; for others, such earnings will be more difficult.

In August 1996, President Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, fulfilling his campaign promise to "end welfare as we know it". The legislation replaces the six-decade-old Aid To Families With Dependent Children programme (AFDC) with so-called workfare under which recipient parents may no longer receive financial assistance indefinitely. Instead, they must obtain employment or other means of support within two years, after which benefits are reduced or cease entirely. There is broad consensus that workfare is a step in the right direction. This paper challenges that consensus. The programme will intensify the plight of welfare children and deepen the economic problems of America in future years. We propose instead a programme that also promotes the work ethic as a basic premise of reform, but that seeks to reduce welfare rolls by making the education and development of assisted children the central obligation of AFDC parents.