Thursday 1 October 2020

Housing issues and the associated research objectives/ questions: the public housing theme

 

Housing issues and the associated research objectives/ questions: the public housing theme


Article 1: Yung Yau. 2012. “Ruling out trouble: Unacceptable behaviour and its control in Hong Kongs public housing” Habitat International 36 (2012) 11e19.

 Housing issues

“The enjoyment of a quality living environment is the desire of all residents. Yet, it is not guaranteed even if housing is flawlessly designed and constructed because the quality of living environment. In fact, apart from housing design and construction, residentswell-being is contingent also on housing management (Yau, 2010). While non-participation or inactivity of residents has been regarded as one of the major causes of poorly-managed housing, the impacts of neighbourhood nuisances or residentsunacceptable behaviour started gaining growing attention from policy makers, housing authorities, residents and academics in the western countries in recent years (e.g. Adderley, 2008; Burney, 2005). Frequently reported nuisances or unacceptable behaviour include deliberate littering in communal areas, using dwellings for illegal dealings, creating disturbing noise, spraying graffiti and other vandalistic acts. The seriousness of these problems has been vividly demonstrated by the increasing number of complaints and residentsdissatisfaction with their neighbourhoods (e.g. Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland, 2008; Scottish Government Social Research, 2007).”;

 

“In Hong Kong, neighbourhood problems did not attract much social concern before 2003, and they were dealt with in a rather fragmented manner. For example, noise nuisances were regulated by the Noise Control Ordinance whereas deliberate littering and spitting were controlled by the Fixed Penalty (Public Cleanliness Offences) Ordinance. An integrated policy to crack these problems was absent. Nonetheless, a structured control was institutionalised in 2003. As the aftermath of the outbreak of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in early 2003, the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Hong Kong Government) implemented the Marking Scheme for Tenancy Enforcement in Public Housing Estates in August 2003, with a stated aim to improve the hygienic and living conditions in public housing estates in the territory (Team Clean, 2003)”;

 

Research objectives/ questions

“… it is worthwhile to study how the residents perceive the neighbourhood problems in public housing. Also, it is interesting to know what the causes of these problems are, who cannot tolerate the problems and who support the implementation of the marking scheme in their housing estates. These findings can help the community to justify whether the marking scheme should be institutionalised or not”

 

“Opinions from public housing tenants were collated through a self-administered face-to-face structured questionnaire survey conducted between November 2009 and January 2010. This approach was used with an eye to gaining the highest possible number of participants in the survey. A questionnaire was devised to collect the information necessary for the empirical study. Before the survey, the preset questionnaire had been pretested and amended according to the testersfeedbacks. Interviews were discontinued if the respondents had not heard of the marking scheme before. A total of 339 tenants living in two public rental housing (PRH) estates and two Tenants Purchase Scheme (TPS) estates was interviewed eventually”

 

 

Article 2: PEGGY TEO and SHIRLENA HUANG. 1996. “A Sense of Place in Public Housing: a Case Study of Pasir Ris, Singapore” HABITAT INTL. Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 31)7-325, 1996.

 Housing issues

“Singapore is well known for its public housing programme, which currently houses 87% of the country's population, l Beginning with the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT), the colonial administrative body set up in 1927 to deal with slum conditions within the city centre, housing policy has matured under the auspices of the Housing and Development Board (HDB) which was formed in 1960. Initially, the main objective of the HDB was to provide shelter for Singapore's increasing population. 2 Since achieving this goal in 1975, 3 the HDB has become more concerned with the type and quality of housing it is providing. In particular, HDB has responded to its strongest criticism that its estates are uniform and monotonous. 4 Critics have argued that this standardisation stems from post-war urban planning, whereby the built environment was defined solely in utilitarian terms along the lines of functionalism. 5 By the 1980s, Singapore came to be described as "another modern metropolis ''6 -- international in style, but also faceless and homogeneous and lacking in any sense of place”

 

The reference to place is an important one. The interest in this concept within geographical literature is longstanding and has been given diverse treatment in definition and conceptualisation. For Tuan, s Relph 9 and Ley and Samuels,l° the phenomenological and humanistic traditions aimed at uncovering the meanings which an environment holds for individuals. More recent treatments of humanistic geography are far more critical. For example, Philo and Kearns and Squire raised much discussion on urban landscapes which are "irreverent" to the realities of cultures, histories and localities, especially in those landscapes created for the tourist. 11 This evaluative approach is also apparent in Massey's 12 call for a "non-parochial" treatment to the study of a sense of place, in which she argues for a recognition of the global context in shaping the identity of a place. While the structuralist school 13 ascribes man to a determined existence in his urban experience who is subject to overarching structures, Agnew 14 counterargues that people are also agencies who have a role to play in influencing the creation of landscapes. For example, Jackson 15 and Jackson and Penrose 16 draw attention to place as the mediator between state and society, as providing a context to contest or to construct space. According to them, people who live and work in places are not always free and able to shape meanings into these landscapes, because there are others with authority and power to shape the context and constraints”

 

Research objectives/ questions

“The purpose of this paper is to address the extent to which the public housing landscape of Singapore reflects the interaction between people as agencies and the political and economic structures represented by the state”;

 

“This study focuses on the role of HDB in the planning and design of public housing landscape”;

 

 

Article 3: Bon-Gang Hwang a, Xianbo Zhao a,*, Si Yi Ngb. 2013. “Identifying the critical factors affecting schedule performance of public housing Projects” Habitat International 38 (2013) 214e221.

 Housing issues

“Public housing has been the rising issue in Singapore in order to provide sufficient homes for all. The demand for public housing flats is also increasing. To better meet the demand, the Singapore government decided to reduce the waiting time of future owners for HDB flats, which needs their completion on time and thus poses more schedule pressures to parties involved in the construction of HDB projects. Delay would lead to incapability of achieving the schedule objectives of a project, and late completion and delivery tend to result in cost overruns, client dissatisfaction, and other consequent problems. Assurance of project schedule has been considered as an important indicator of project success, and factors associated with project schedule have been recognized to be critical to project success (Chua, Kog, & Loh, 1999; Ling, Low, Wang, & Lim, 2009)”;

 

Research objectives/ questions

“…this study aims to fill this knowledge gap by achieving the following objectives: (1) To identify critical factors affecting schedule performance of public housing projects in Singapore; (2) To compare the factors affecting schedule performance of public housing projects and other building projects in Singapore; and (3) To provide recommendations to respond to these critical factors. The findings from this study will provide a better understanding of the critical factors and help practitioners involving public housing projects to take measures to assure the achievement of project schedule objectives”;

 

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