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The term ‘affordable housing’ has been rapidly gaining currency over the last decade across Europe, both in policy and research circles. While it is often used as a synonym or close relative of the term ‘social housing’, more recently it is finding its own definition and policy instruments in specific cities and countries. However, boundaries between both concepts remain unclear. To shed light on recent developments of each of these terms, this paper presents findings from a study commissioned by the European Investment Bank, which investigated current trends in definitions, programmes and policies both in social housing and affordable housing. This paper focuses on findings for England, Italy, Poland and The Netherlands. Methods used included desk research and interviews with key informants in each of the four countries. In addition, in-depth information about Italy and The Netherlands was gathered through stakeholder workshops carried out between September and November 2016. Findings show that affordable housing in all four countries is becoming a more distinct field, in parallel to developments in social housing. In addition, the paper describes some innovative policies undertaken to develop affordable housing solutions. The paper concludes with a reflection on scenarios for future policy developments and an agenda for further research.

The actualization of affordable housing remains a challenge. This challenge is exacerbated by the increasing societal demand for the incorporation of sustainability principles into such housing types to improve levels of occupant health and well-being whilst avouching the desired levels of affordability. Innovative technologies and practices have been described as beneficial to the effectuation of sustainable affordable housing. However, knowledge concerning the deployment of innovative technologies and practices in sustainable affordable housing (sustainable, innovative, affordable housing—SIAH) delivery remains nascent. Consequently, there is a lack of a common ontology among stakeholders concerning how to realize SIAH. This study aims to contribute toward the development of this body of knowledge through the establishment of the critical success factors (CSFs) for effective SIAH implementation. To achieve this objective, a systematic review and bibliometric analysis focusing on a juxtaposition of sustainable, innovative and affordable housing concepts was carried out based on the relevant literature. This led to the identification and clustering of CSFs for these housing concepts at individual levels and as a collective (SIAH). The findings of the study consisted of the establishment of four distinct yet interrelated facets through which SIAH can be achieved holistically, namely, housing design, house element, housing production method and housing technology. A total of 127 CSFs were found to be aligned to these facets, subsequently clustered, and conclusively used for the development of a SIAH CSF framework. The most frequently occurring CSFs with predominant interconnections were the utilization of energy-efficient systems/fittings, tenure security, a comfortable and healthy indoor environment, affordable housing price in relation to income and using water-efficient systems/fittings CSFs, and establishing the emergent SIAH CSF framework. The framework in this study is useful in the documentation of SIAH features for construction projects and further studies into SIAH CSFs.

In Freedomland , Annemarie H. Sammartino tells Co-op City's story from the perspectives of those who built it and of the ordinary people who made their homes in this monument to imperfect liberal ideals of economic and social justice. Located on the grounds of the former Freedomland amusement park on the northeastern edge of the Bronx, Co-op City's 35 towers and 236 townhouses have been home to hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers and is an icon visible to all traveling on the east coast corridor. In 1965, Co-op City was planned as the largest middle-class housing development in the United States. It was intended as a solution to the problem of affordable housing in America's largest city. While Co-op City first appeared to be a huge success story for integrated, middle-class housing, tensions would lead its residents to organize the largest rent strike in American history. In 1975, a coalition of shareholders took on New York State and, against all odds, secured resident control. Much to the dismay of many denizens of the complex, even this achievement did not halt either rising costs or white flight. Nevertheless, after the challenges of the 1970s and 1980s, the cooperative achieved a hard-won stability as the twentieth century came to a close. Freedomland chronicles the tumultuous first quarter century of Co-op City's existence. Sammartino's narrative connects planning, economic, and political history and the history of race in America. The result is a new perspective on twentieth-century New York City.

Background Community-based care services refers to the professional services provided at home to the elderly with formally assessed demands. The growth of the elderly population has increased the demand for these services, and this issue is even worse in the affordable housing community (AHC) of China. Understanding of elderly’s demands for different types of community-based care services and its determinations would enable the implementation of appropriate incentive schemes to promote utilization of community-based care services in the AHCs of China. Methods Guided by previous studies, a conceptual framework was developed. Then, a questionnaire was designed and a community based survey was conducted from May 10–20, 2018 in Daishan AHC of Nanjing City, China. Four hundred eight participants from 25,650 elderly people were selected by systematic random sampling technique. Binary logistic regression was applied to the data about the elderly’ primary demands for community-based care services in the AHC, to quantify the elderly’s demands and explore related individual-level factors. Results The finding indicates that more than 50% of respondents had the demand for an elderly care hotline, building health archives, on-call nursing and doctor visits, medical lectures, regular medical examinations and sporting fitness. The binary logistic regression models revealed that the primary demands of the elderly for community-based care services were influenced by distinct factors. Conclusions Our findings help clarify different types of community-based care services and provide fresh information about the demand for community-based care among the elderly in AHCs. Several policy implications are discussed to enhance the efficiency of community-based care service provision.

Using the Canadian Housing Survey, 2018–2019, we examined self-reported general and mental health among tenants residing in various housing types, including cooperative, non-profit, government, and private housing. Adjusting for confounders, we discovered that tenants in not-for-profit housing reported the highest odds, over four and half times (odds ratio 4.63), of poor general health compared to tenants in privately owned housing in Canada. On the other hand, the odds were reversed for tenants in cooperative housing and government housing, with 24% and 33% lower odds of poor general health, respectively, compared to tenants in privately owned housing. Moreover, we found that tenants in not-for-profit (1.26) and government housing (1.43) reported higher odds of poor mental health. On the other hand, tenants in cooperative housing reported 42% lower odds of poor mental health than tenants in privately owned housing. Furthermore, we observed variations in the odds of poor general and poor mental health among tenants from different equity-seeking groups across different housing types. These findings highlight the importance of considering housing type and equity factors in understanding health outcomes among tenants.

Understanding how housing attributes are capitalized into prices is central to addressing urban affordability challenges. Using 2799 second-hand housing transactions from Wenzhou, China, this study examines residential price formation under pronounced spatial and structural heterogeneity. Multiple predictive models are evaluated within a unified 10-fold cross-validation framework. Results indicate that Random Forest delivers the strongest predictive performance, achieving a normalized mean squared error below 0.10 and explaining over 90% of out-of-sample price variation, substantially outperforming hedonic regression, regression trees, bagging, boosting, and support vector models. Permutation-based importance analysis identifies district location, building scale, and floor area as the dominant price determinants, while the influence of renovation quality, transportation access, and educational amenities varies across districts and dwelling types. These findings reveal strong nonlinearities and heterogeneous valuation mechanisms in rapidly urbanizing housing markets. Methodologically, the study demonstrates how interpretable machine learning complements traditional hedonic analysis, while providing policy-relevant insights into housing affordability dynamics in medium-sized Chinese cities.

This study investigates how China’s affordable housing policies have shaped the real estate market, using data from 35 major cities between 2010 and 2023. By analyzing housing prices, sales, and investment trends with advanced statistical methods, we found that increasing the supply of affordable housing significantly slows down rising home prices, especially in cities with high housing costs. During the COVID-19 pandemic, these policies also helped stabilize the market by boosting housing sales and reducing price volatility. Our research highlights regional differences: affordable housing works best in economically developed eastern cities to curb prices, while in less-developed central and western areas, it may temporarily increase prices due to land competition. We also show that affordable housing absorbs demand from low- and middle-income buyers, easing pressure on commercial housing markets over time. This study provides practical insights for policymakers to design targeted housing strategies, optimize land use, and enhance urban resilience during crises, like pandemics. By combining real-world data with robust analysis, we offer a clearer picture of how housing security policies can balance market stability and affordability in rapidly urbanizing economies.

The building industry accounts for about 40% of all climate impacts, stemming from construction and renovation processes, use of buildings and demolition, disposal and recycling of buildings and building materials. The Danish Parliament passed a Danish Climate Act in 2020 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 70% by 2030, and an action plan in 2021 to create a Circular Economy (CE) in DK that can support the achievement of climate neutrality by 2050. About 20% of the Danish housing stock is affordable housing with approx. 560.000 affordable housing homes, inhabited by nearly 1 million out of 5.8 million people. In 2020 the Danish Government decided on the most significant overall housing agreement to set aside EUR 5,5 billion for ‘Green renovations’ and the building of new affordable housing. Building and renovating affordable housing in Denmark can thus become significant drivers for the Danish building industry’s transition to CE. Therefore, developing integrated tools and methodologies for life cycle thinking and CE assessment for the built environment is necessary. We have identified four significant gaps in this endeavour in a previously released literature review: For CE to succeed, it is necessary to take a circular view of the life cycle of buildings, which includes the service life phase, the reuse phase and the recycle phase; To achieve CE, it is necessary to continue research regarding the possibilities of integrating Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Life Cycle Cost (LCC) and Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) into Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA); S-LCA needs further maturation and development; It is imperative to focus upon operationalising LCSA for practitioners in all phases of a building’s life cycle. This paper aims to outline a strategy for analysing and discussing these four gaps and their interrelation in-depth and suggest an action research proposal to understand better how to bridge the gaps from a research perspective.

Housing is a basic human need and its affordability has become a concern with the exponential population growth, especially in densely populated developing countries. Rapid urbanization, inadequate housing and increasing slums have also brought environmental challenges to urban areas of developing countries. To address such concerns, Green Affordable Housing (GAH) has emerged as a concept with the convergence of ideas and actions of affordable housing and sustainability. This research aims to identify the GAH adoption strategies and the financial options through case study analysis of three South Asian Economies (India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh) and validated the case study outcome by using content analysis approach. The findings reveal that India has made notable progress in establishing a GAH financial market, while Pakistan and Bangladesh are struggling due to a lack of appropriate funds and underrated financial markets. This study further proposed the financing framework to achieve GAH for South Asian economies because the low-income Credit Link Subsidy Scheme alone supporting the adoption of GAH would not be enough. The study provides policy recommendations for using Credit Link subsidies, energy-efficient mortgages, and Public-Private Partnerships for housing investment as effective methods for financingGAH.