The Changing Shape of the East Asian Housing Model

Abstract

Notwithstanding detailed differences in housing policies, as well as the development gap between the southerly and most eastern regions, the major East Asian economies can be seen as sharing a common housing model, distinct from those of western economies. In East Asia, housing interventions historically focused on the high volume production of apartments for working, male breadwinner households. Rates of housing output have been phenomenal in most cases, with the rapid expansion of construction programmes reflecting the abilities of development-orientated East Asian governments to appropriate land and mobilize the resources of public agencies and private corporations in the supply of new housing. The main priority was to sustain the express pace of modernization, urbanization and economic expansion. State plans sought to clear slum housing, increase land values and promote high-speed growth. Individual housing needs were not irrelevant, although political and economic logic usually dictated that economically productive households were prioritized rather than the poor or vulnerable. Approaches thus reflected the features of both developmental states (see Johnson, 1982; Wade 1998) and productivist welfare regimes (Holliday, 2000; Kwon, 2005; Kwon and Holliday, 2007). For reasons explored throughout this book, home ownership became strongly embedded in this East Asian model.