China’s fast growth of economy and urbanization have driven large-scale urban renewal projects, thus triggering a wide spectrum of unsustainable problems. Little research has systematically explored the stakeholders’ expectations in urban renewal projects in China. A deeper understanding of the divergent interests and expectations of the key stakeholder groups is an important step towards sustainable urban renewal. This paper aims to analyze the stakeholders’ expectations on urban renewal projects. Eighteen factors are identified and compared among the main stakeholders: government sectors, consulting parties, the general public and affected residents in both redevelopment and rehabilitation projects, using questionnaire survey and interviews in Chongqing, China. The results reveal that there exist enormous differences of opinions and interests among stakeholders in all economic, environmental and social aspects. To achieve sustainable urban renewal in China, the governments ought to reconsider what the “public interest” stands for. In-situ residents should be understood and treated differently, based on the type of projects. An effective dialogue mechanism as well as supportive administrative and legal system should be established. Moreover, urban-renewal-related education and publicity should be a long-term strategy to change current awareness of different stakeholders, by improving their skill and willingness to participate.

Both Sweden and the Netherlands had housing systems that include broad models of municipal housing (Sweden) or social housing (Netherlands). These broad models, however, came under discussion due to the competition policy of the European Commission. Financial government support – state aid – for public or social housing is considered to create false competition with commercial landlords. The countries chose different ways out of this problem. The Netherlands choose to direct state aid to a specified target group and had to introduce income limits for dwellings owned by housing associations. Sweden instead chose to change the law regulating municipal housing companies and demands that these companies should act in a ‘businesslike way’ and with that aims to create a level playing field. This paper will describe why the two countries chose different options, the development during the first years, and also speculate about the consequences on the longer run and the future role of the public/social housing sector in housing and urban policy.

Social rental housing has once again captured a strong position on the Dutch political agenda. This has happened especially since the European Commission sent a letter to the Dutch government indicating that the Dutch social rental sector was not considered EU-proof from the viewpoint of the European Union's competition policy. The letter coincided with criticisms from Dutch politicians that housing associations had not been performing well enough for some time, given their abundant resources. However, in an international context, the Dutch social rental sector is often regarded as a good system for providing affordable housing to those who need it, without the sector being marginalized and stigmatized. Jim Kemeny has classified this market as one in which the social rental sector in due course competes with the private rental sector on equal or almost equal terms as a unitary rental market. The starting point of this paper is whether the achievement of a unitary rental sector is threatened by the EU's competition policy. It will also discuss two other possible threats to the future of the Dutch unitary rental market: the threat to take surplus capital away from housing associations and have government decide on what to invest; and the attractiveness of home-ownership to households. We conclude that the character of the Dutch unitary rental sector is indeed under threat, although mostly by stealth.EU competition policy, housing, social rental housing, the Netherlands, unitary rental market,

In China, there is a growing number of urban renewal projects due to the rapid growth of the economy and urbanization. To meet the needs of urban development, urban renewal requires a sound decision-making approach involving various stakeholder groups. However, current urban renewal decision-making is criticized for poor efficiency, equity, and resulting in many unintended adverse outcomes. It is claimed that high-level transaction costs (e.g., a great deal of time spent on negotiation and coordination) are the factors hidden behind the problems. However, few studies have analyzed urban renewal decision-making in a transaction costs perspective. Using the case of Chongqing, this paper aims at adopting transaction costs theory to understand the administrative process of urban renewal decision-making in China. This research focuses on four key stakeholder groups: municipal government, district government, local administrative organizations, and the consulting parties. A transaction costs analytical framework is established. First, the decision-making stages of urban renewal and involved key stakeholder groups are clarified. Second, the transactions done by different stakeholder groups in each stage is identified, thus to analyze what types of transaction costs are generated. Third, the relative levels of transaction costs among different stakeholder groups were measured based on the interview. The empirical analysis reveals how transaction costs occur and affect urban renewal decision-making. Finally, policy implications were proposed to reduce transaction costs in order to enhance urban renewal.

A perusal of the literature on housing debates reveals that the term ‘value’ is mostly applied to express the financial value of a house and is dealt with in economic literature. However, an alternative meaning of the word ‘value’ in the housing literature can be found in research into the values underlying housing preferences, applying research methods from the marketing literature. The explicit combination of moral values and housing policy and design is found neither in the academic housing nor in the philosophical literature. However, diving deeper into the housing debate reveals that there are a host of moral values already present throughout this debate that are often not explicitly articulated and explicated, such as inclusiveness, sustainability, autonomy, and security. The aim of this paper is to address the role of values in housing policy and design. By doing so, we apply the Design for Values approach (DfV). We argue that the DfV approach can help to make implicit moral values more explicit, which can improve the housing debate, housing policy-making, and housing design. The paper first explores which values are relevant for housing policy and design and operationalizes those values. Next, the paper describes key debates in housing such as: What is “adequate housing” in times of rapid urbanization and increasing house prices? We argue that by exploring the underlying values of these debates, stakeholders can create a better understanding of the current (lack of) fundamental discussions on housing issues

Purpose: This paper aims to examine the existence of the ripple effect from Amsterdam to the housing markets of other regions in The Netherlands. It identifies which regional housing markets are influenced by house price movements in Amsterdam. Design/methodology/approach: The paper considers the ripple effect as a lead-lag effect and a long-run convergence between the Amsterdam and regional house prices. Using the real house prices for second-hand owner-occupied dwellings from 1995q1 to 2016q2, the paper adopts the Toda–Yamamoto Granger Causality approach to study the lead-lag effects. It uses the autoregressive distributed lags (ARDL)-Bounds cointegration techniques to examine the long-run convergence between the regional and the Amsterdam house prices. The paper controls for house price fundamentals to eliminate possible confounding effects of common shocks. Findings: The cumulative evidence suggests that Amsterdam house prices have influence on (or ripple to) all the Dutch regions, except one. In particular, the Granger Causality test concludes that a lead-lag effect of house prices exists from Amsterdam to all the regions, apart from Zeeland. The cointegration test shows evidence of a long-convergence between Amsterdam house prices and six regions: Friesland, Groningen, Limburg, Overijssel, Utrecht and Zuid-Holland. Research limitations/implications: The paper adopts an econometric approach to examine the Amsterdam ripple effect. More sophisticated economic models that consider the asymmetric properties of house prices and the patterns of interregional socio-economic activities into the modelling approach are recommended for further investigation. Originality/value: This paper focuses on The Netherlands for which the ripple effect has not yet been researched to the authors’ knowledge. Given the substantial wealth effects associated with house price changes that may shape economic activity through consumption, evidence for ripples may be helpful to policy makers for uncovering trends that have implications for the entire economy. Moreover, the analysis controls for common house price fundamentals which most previous papers ignored.