so•cial hous•ing |ˈsō sh əl ˈhouzi ng| (noun) housing provided for people on low incomes or with particular needs by government agencies or non-profit organizations. by Hsuan Luo Most of us think of social housing as housing for poor people. This conception is correct to a certain degree, since much of the time social housing serves as a relief policy. However, there is more to social housing than that. A new consciousness about social housing emerged after WWII, when many governments were confronted with a rapid growthof their populations. Yet today, land prices are much more expensive, and governments need to offer citizens housing at an affordable price. Social housing saw an upsurge in the 1950s, especially in the projects of Le Corbusier in France and Minoru Yamazaki, who also designed the World Trade Center, in the United States. They both constructed buildings that abided by new ideas of modernism: simplicity and practicality. Their designs were brilliant, but in the case the project went off track when the government tried to profit from it, and Yamazaki’s project was destroyed after two decades when the buildings had become a nest for drugs and gangsters. But social housing has been particularly successful in the Netherlands, where 32% of all housing is devoted to social housing, and half of that amount is located in Amsterdam. There are virtually no limitations regarding income, and social housing is open to all citizens. Yet even there, the government merely supervises the programs, which are run by private non-profit organizations.
The Dutch have also done away with the idea that social housing should be located outside the city in remote areas. Instead, they have attempted to distribute centrally located housing among the whole population, which facilitates connections in civil society and might be seen as the grounds for further innovation. Taiwan also has social housing, but it is much less satisfactory. Most of it was constructed nearly 30 years ago and was originally well intentioned: in a prime area and with many nearby facilities. However, these units were for sale rather than for rent. This neglected the needs of the poor and turned social housing into a popular target for the capitalist market. Recently, the Taiwanese government has embarked on new social housing projects, but the design is still under discussion. Hopefully it will represent a new vision for social housing in Taiwan, and we might gain insights by looking at the situation in other countries. Our policy will also depend on a number of conditions, including the fiscal situation of the government. Social housing can alter people lives for the better, and it should be a mutual interaction between humans and architecture. a
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May 2024
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