Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
examining what it is like to live under such
conditions. This latter aspect means that a
humanist perspective continues to be required.
Third, state and international housing policies
need to be critiqued from a structuralist or
political economy point of view (Box 37.2).
As argued by Potter
et al
. (1999:242), in spite of
three decades of varied responses to shelter needs,
the problems of low-income housing seem to be
as widespread as ever. For many years, the practical
response to housing problems revolved around
promoting self-help in the form of aided self-help,
but it is now increasingly being recognised that
renting is an important tenurial category (Gilbert
and Gugler 1992) that may well need to be
promoted and encouraged.
Box 37.2
The critical assessment of housing policies and housing issues
Another area of applied research focuses on housing
issues and housing policy. What is being done to improve
the supply of adequate and appropriate housing? In this,
an issue of academic and practical salience is how the
state interacts with citizens in the functioning of the
housing market in order to derive appropriate policies for
housing. Following the ideas of Turner and others on self-
build housing, the nature of the interaction between the
state and the citizen can be seen as central to housing
provision in poor countries. How much should the state
do, and in what domains? Or should the entire process
be left to the individual/household?
Given the arguments of Turner, it is now widely
accepted that in a housing crisis, the last thing that a
government should do is build houses. However, it is
equally clear that the responsibility of government does
not begin and end there. The government still has
responsibilities in relation to controlling the supply of land
and providing for jobs and economic well-being. In St
Lucia, for example, there is a substantial and growing
number of squatters in the main urban areas (Potter
1994). The outcome is areas such as Four à Chaud in
the capital, Castries. This area was built by squatters on
reclaimed land adjacent to the port area. Although the
area is by now well developed, with storm drains, during
torrential rains the area is subjected to frequent floods.
In many ways, however, this is a thriving and vibrant
community, and the area is dotted with workshops such
as the one on the main street, which produces excellent
furniture (Plate 37.2).
Potter
(ibid.)
shows that in a seemingly paradoxical
manner, the Ministry of Housing has little or nothing to
do directly with the production of housing. This function
is vested in a technically oriented national housing
agency known as the Housing and Lands Development
Corporation. This was established in 1971 but was largely
dormant from the early 1980s to 1989. During its 'active'
period, however, it was involved in only one scheme,
which resulted in the production of 110 houses in one
section of the outer city area. In the final analysis, these
houses sold for $EC11,000, and a significant proportion
were purchased by middle-income earners.
Potter
(ibid.)
linked this to the articulation of the
modes of production. This suggests that the capitalist
state interacts with pre-capitalist and capitalist forms in
uneven ways. In respect of pre-capitalist or traditional
forms, these are preserved where it is not in the
interests of capital to intervene and replace them. This
gives rise to the idea of no housing policy as a direct
housing policy. The implicit housing policy appears to
be to let the poor provide for themselves. In such a
context, housing is effectively not a political issue,
unless social unrest in some shape or form thrusts it
onto the political agenda.
Plate 37.2
A thriving furniture
workshop in the Four-à-Chaud
low-income community,
Castries, St Lucia (
photograph:
Rob Potter
)
