Social Justice and the Right to Housing as a Transformative Vision: American and Global Examples

This chapterThe Right to Housing focuses on housing and its implications for administration of social justice. In the first section, the chapter provides a review of strategies, planning and design of affordable “public” and “social” housing and their significance for administration of social justice; as envisioned by various paradigm assumptions. Since housing provision requires active involvement of governments and the public sector, from the outsetConservative paradigm conservative paradigm’s’ emphasis on market forces and for-profit developers to accomplish the task rules out their effectiveness. Thus, the chapter’s focus is mainly on the liberal paradigm’s unique interpretations of “equity” and “citizens’ right to housing” in providing adequate living space as a “basic needs” consumption good on one hand; and the progressive-socialist approach to housing that at least in principle guarantees citizens equal right to housing on the other—as was the case in the former Soviet UnionSoviet Union. Using three case studies of affordable housingAffordable housing provision in the United StatesUnited States, SwedenSweden and People’s Republic of ChinaPeople’s Republic of China, each with their own unique political economies, the remainder of this chapter examines the extent of each nation’s success in providing adequate housing for its citizens. Of note, is the creeping influence of neoliberal economic principles in shaping housing policies in all three countries during the past five decades—a critical shift in housing provision strategies that has increased the private sector’s share of construction and management of affordable housing units.