Journal of Housing and the Built Environment最新文献

The significant influence of residential spaces on quality of life and social growth has constantly encouraged a desire for design quality in housing. This study delves into the complicated aspect of well-designed housing, driven by the need for liveable, eco-friendly, and aesthetically pleasing habitats. The study aims to analyze numerous aspects of housing quality using a systematic approach, considering the significance of the design quality of housing. The article discusses relevant research, consistent contributors, and keywords used in the field. To understand the design quality of housing, this study used a PRISMA technique for systematic literature search, VOSviewer for bibliometric analysis, and NVivo for thematic analysis. It highlights the necessity of user-centered, interdisciplinary design as well as suitable frameworks for quality evaluation. The research also emphasizes the significance of adaptable quality frameworks, holistic approaches, and the collaborative relationship between qualitative and quantitative assessment methods. This study also provides a global perspective on housing quality research. The comprehensive study encourages further research and development in the area and contributes to the current discussion on the design quality of housing.

Concern for unsustainable buildings has obliged the global construction industry to embrace energy-efficient building envelope. In Mauritius, building insulation like the eco-block technology was initiated to reduce energy consumption from air-conditioning, ensure energy cost savings and improve thermal comfort. An investigation of the factors which motivate society’s acceptance of the new building is important to enable its wider-scale implementation. Normally, the adoption decision-making process is a generic model to understand the different stages leading to the purchase decision of a specific innovation. However, the model is restricted in terms of obtaining an in-depth contextual understanding towards the selection process. The contribution of this research is, therefore, to develop a new adoption decision-making framework that aims to explore the contextual factors and examine Mauritians’ purchase decision of the eco-block building, filling the literature gaps. A survey questionnaire was designed and distributed to Mauritians based on the researcher’s judgment, where 257 responses were useful to undergo structural equation modelling. The findings revealed that dissatisfaction with the thermal comfort of existing buildings during hot season, importance to reduce energy, household size, internal product features, economic incentives and public education have significant influence on the building acceptance. Contrastingly, building age, awareness of building insulation alternatives, external product features and past experience have no effect on adoption decision. Accordingly, the predictor variables within the contextual model could satisfactorily explain 21.1% of the eco-block building purchase behaviour. The contextual framework can eventually assist building developers to use the research outcomes and formulate successful implementation strategies.

Numerous studies have explored the capitalization of property values due to convenient transportation. However, the outbreak of COVID-19 may diminish this effect. Furthermore, limited research has delved into the spatial heterogeneity of the impact of COVID-19 on the property market. Consequently, this study focused on Wuhan, one of the first cities in the world to experience the pandemic outbreak. We developed a series of DID Hedonic Price models to analyze the temporal heterogeneity of COVID-19's impact on property prices and used an EM clustering model to categorize metro stations for a more detailed examination of the spatial heterogeneity of COVID-19's impact on the implicit price of properties around different types of metro stations. The study reveals that COVID-19 has, on the whole, reduced the implicit price of properties around metro stations in Wuhan. However, this impact exhibits a lag effect, becoming evident only after six months of the lifting of lockdown. Additionally, this impact demonstrates spatial heterogeneity, as COVID-19 has reduced the implicit price of properties around 'employment-residential mismatched' metro stations, 'residential-oriented' metro stations, 'employment-oriented' metro stations, and 'employment-comprehensive' metro stations while increasing the implicit price of properties around 'residential-comprehensive' metro stations and comprehensive stations. Finally, our research indicates that, for cities severely impacted by the pandemic, such as Wuhan, the impact of COVID-19 on the implicit price of properties around metro stations may persist for an extended period.

Different styles of facades can have a satisfying or dissatisfying psychological effect on people. According to the literature on façade evaluation, perceptual dimensions are effective in façade aesthetics. In this research the effect of perceptual dimensions of familiarity, complexity, originality and excitement on the aesthetics of postmodern, neoclassic and late modern style façades have been investigated. Two groups of architects and non-architects assessed 15 images of the three-façade styles in the city of Tehran. The partial least squares structural equation modelling approach was used to test the model obtained from the research literature. A questionnaire was adopted to measure the perceptual dimensions effective in the aesthetics of fifteen façade images. 340 non-architects and 143 architects filled out the questionnaire. The results show that the structural model can be a valid framework upon which to evaluate the aesthetics of the facades by two groups of architects and non-architects. For both groups of architects and non-architects, the originality of the façade design has the greatest impact on the beauty evaluation of the facade. The originality and excitement perceptual dimensions mediate the relation between the complexity and beauty perceptual dimensions. The presented structural model can assist architects and policymakers on the perceptual dimensions significant to facade aesthetics. Furthermore, the empirical findings and the discussion presented on the perceptual dimension expand the theoretical background on facade aesthetics. The presented structural model can be used to evaluate the aesthetics of other façade types or apartment facades in other locations.

Classical assimilation theories hold that immigrant groups will slowly integrate economically over time over multiple generations, which implies that the (grand)children of immigrants will improve their housing market position compared to their (grand)parents and transition from rental housing to owner-occupation. This study uses unique data on the children and grandchildren of immigrants and native Dutch (‘third generation’) in 2018 to assess whether and how the descendants of large immigrant groups from the postwar era have attained ownership. The generational perspective is two-fold. First, we are interested in how individuals from various generations compare within and between origin groups (generational comparison). Second, the study also assesses the role of parental wealth and tenure in intergenerational transfers, i.e., ethnic and generational differences in the effects of these parental background variables. Our estimates from logistic regression models show that Surinamese-Dutch and Turkish-Dutch see higher predicted owner-occupation rates over generations, with some Turkish-Dutch groups having higher rates than native-Dutch. The parental background variables partly predict owner-occupation rates and explain group differences, which indicates the importance of generational transfers.

The city is constantly changing. New buildings are built, new infrastructure replaces old infrastructure, and the city grows with the addition of new areas. This study investigates the impact of new construction projects on the socioeconomic background and affordability of residents in Stockholm, Sweden. Using the difference-in-difference methodology, the authors analyse data from several construction projects in the city from 2009 to 2014. The results suggest a limited effect on the proportion of residents with higher education and young people, that is, no gentrification effect, but a positive effect on income and affordability. However, this could lead to gentrification and displacement over time. This research sheds light on the potential outcomes of urban development and highlights the need for effective policies to ensure sustainable and equitable growth in Stockholm.

Across Europe, there is a trend to re-focus social housing on the most economically vulnerable groups (“residualisation”). We investigate whether this trend is also observed in Austria, a conservative welfare state with a social housing system open to a broad range of households and a long tradition of municipal housing. Using data from 1995 to 2018, we estimate residualisation indicators that compare the income of social housing tenants with other housing sectors. Based on tenants’ income, we find that municipal housing has become more residualised. This contrasts with Austria’s social housing allocation policy, where generous income limits remain important cornerstones. For limited-profit housing associations (LPHAs), we observe a smaller residualisation trend (mainly outside the capital Vienna), which has gained momentum since the early 2010s. This remedies the Austrian peculiarity that the LPHA sector was a middle-income tenure rather than a safety net for the poor. For both types of social housing, a growing income gap with owners is noticeable.

Abstract

Despite persistent housing affordability issues, energy policy and housing renovation are usually investigated separately from housing costs other than energy. Researchers have examined the financial viability of renovation attending to building conditions and the socio-economic characteristics of their occupants. However, the distributional impacts of renovation incentives and the potential of fiscal policy to redistribute housing costs remain understudied. Dutch fiscal policy, favouring homeownership, offers a relevant context to evaluate how property taxation can boost renovation rates. The novelty of this paper resides in investigating the impact of two policies, the current direct subsidy and a proposal for a green tax, on both the financial viability of renovation and the subsequent distribution of housing costs. The proposed green tax combines energy efficiency and taxation of property revenue. We employ a model considering marginal costs of housing renovation, obtained from a government dataset, and marginal benefits, drawn from a hedonic regression. We assess the distributional impacts of different policy scenarios by examining changes in user costs across income deciles. Our findings indicate that existing renovation subsidies exacerbate the regressive distributional impacts resulting from the current housing taxation system in the Netherlands. Introducing energy-efficiency-linked property taxation can make homeownership fiscality less regressive while incentivising housing renovation. Ultimately, this study highlights the importance of incorporating housing affordability as a fundamental element in renovation policies to balance environmental and distributional objectives.

The global pandemic of COVID-19 has been influencing people’s lives and the cities. Not only people’s physical and mental health have been threatened, but also the city operation has been profoundly affected from different perspectives (e.g., social and economic) permanently. How cities can efficiently react and response to improve city resilience is an urgent issue to be addressed. The healthcare system as a vital part of the city systems is confronting intense pressure and many challenges under this emergent public health crisis of COVID-19, which might cause huge impacts on the whole city’s operation. Also, human beings as the direct victims of this public health crisis, their behaviour changes impacts on the healthcare system and the city could have been inevitable but have been neglected. In this context, this paper intends to study the citizen healthcare accessing behaviours changes in the post-pandemic era, and to unearth their impacts on the healthcare system and the city operation. For this purpose, first, a framework of influential factors for healthcare accessing was established based on a bidirectional “capability, opportunity, motivation, and behaviour” (COM-B) model and the comprehensive literature review. In which, 43 factors that would influence citizen healthcare accessing behaviour were identified and classified. Thus, based on the proposed framework, two cases (i.e., UK and China) were analysed in depth and compared based on a questionnaire survey to evaluate the factor importance and relationships under different scenarios. And the most influential factors based on analysis results are classified into 12 aspects (e.g., healthcare capability, policy support, information updating etc.). Further, a novel behaviour-healthcare system-city model based on the COM-B model was developed to rethink and indicate the relationships among citizen behaviour, healthcare system and city operation. The research results can be used by policymakers and researchers to improve the city resilience by enabling immediate responses to city systems and citizens behaviours confronting city emergencies.

Abstract

The rapid spread of the new coronavirus (COVID-19) around the world since early 2020 has caused significant economic, social, psychological, and public health costs. The COVID-19 pandemic hit almost all economic sectors including the hospitality and tourism industry. This review paper examined the impacts of COVID-19 on short-term housing and the factors influencing these impacts. The existing literature reported generally negative effects of COVID-19 on the operating performance of the short-term accommodation industry. COVID-19 impacted on travellers’ perceptions, host-guest interactions and psychological well-being when choosing short-term accommodation. This review also provides implications for minimising the impacts of COVID-19 or similar future disruptive events on short-term accommodation operations and surviving the crisis in the short-term accommodation sector.