IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v50y2018i2p288-309.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Crisis? What crisis? A critical appraisal of World Bank housing policy in the wake of the global financial crisis

Author

Listed:
  • Elisa Van Waeyenberge

Abstract

This paper critically assesses international policy advocacy on how to resolve massive shelter needs in the developing world. It does so by focusing on the World Bank as a leader in development. It argues that the Bank’s housing policy remains thoroughly limited by its persistent commitment to neoliberal and financialised policy practices. These put housing finance at the centre of attempts to relieve shelter needs in the developing world despite the dramatic failures of such an approach as laid bare through the global financial crisis. The paper takes a historical approach to examine the trajectory of World Bank housing policy and is based on close scrutiny of a combination of quantitative and qualitative data. It concludes that an urgent need persists for a decoupling of finance from housing in international policy advocacy.

Suggested Citation

  • Elisa Van Waeyenberge, 2018. "Crisis? What crisis? A critical appraisal of World Bank housing policy in the wake of the global financial crisis," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 50(2), pages 288-309, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:50:y:2018:i:2:p:288-309
    DOI: 10.1177/0308518X17745873
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0308518X17745873
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0308518X17745873?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stephen Malpezzi, 1994. ""Getting the Incentives Right:" A Reply to Robert-Jan Baken and Jan Van Der Linden," Wisconsin-Madison CULER working papers 94-03, University of Wisconsin Center for Urban Land Economic Research.
    2. Branwen Jones, 2012. "‘Bankable Slums’: the global politics of slum upgrading," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(5), pages 769-789.
    3. Sunil Kumar, 2011. "The research--policy dialectic," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(6), pages 662-673, December.
    4. Jamie Peck & Nik Theodore & Neil Brenner, 2013. "Neoliberal Urbanism Redux?," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(3), pages 1091-1099, May.
    5. Kate Bayliss & Ben Fine & Mary Robertson, 2013. "From Financialisation to Consumption: The Systems of Provision Approach Applied to Housing and Water," Working papers wpaper02, Financialisation, Economy, Society & Sustainable Development (FESSUD) Project.
    6. Richard Stren, 2014. "Urban Service Delivery in Africa and the Role of International Assistance," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 32(s1), pages 19-37, July.
    7. Mayo, Stephen K & Malpezzi, Stephen & Gross, David J, 1986. "Shelter Strategies for the Urban Poor in Developing Countries," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 1(2), pages 183-203, July.
    8. Robert M. Buckley & Jerry Kalarickal, 2005. "Housing Policy in Developing Countries: Conjectures and Refutations," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 20(2), pages 233-257.
    9. Stephen Malpezzi, 1990. "Urban Housing and Financial Markets: Some International Comparisons," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 27(6), pages 971-1022, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Vinit Mukhija, 2004. "The Contradictions in Enabling Private Developers of Affordable Housing: A Cautionary Case from Ahmedabad, India," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 41(11), pages 2231-2244, October.
    2. Elisa Van Waeyenberge, 2015. "Crisis? What crisis? The World Bank and Housing Finance for the Poor," Working Papers 191, Department of Economics, SOAS University of London, UK.
    3. Doling, John & Vandenberg, Paul & Tolentino, Jade, 2013. "Housing and Housing Finance—A Review of the Links to Economic Development and Poverty Reduction," ADB Economics Working Paper Series 362, Asian Development Bank.
    4. Ben C. Arimah, 2000. "Housing-sector Performance in Global Perspective: A Cross-city Investigation," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 37(13), pages 2551-2579, December.
    5. Debuque-Gonzales, Margarita, 2013. "Empirical Determinants and Patterns of Research and Development Investment in Asia," ADB Economics Working Paper Series 364, Asian Development Bank.
    6. Buckley, Robert M. & Kalarickal, Jerry, 2004. "Shelter strategies for the urban poor : idiosyncratic and successful, but hardly mysterious," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3427, The World Bank.
    7. (No last name available), Himanshu, 2013. "Poverty and Food Security in India," ADB Economics Working Paper Series 369, Asian Development Bank.
    8. Malpezzi, Stephen, 2001. "The Contributions of Stephen K. Mayo to Housing and Urban Economics," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 72-108, June.
    9. Mace, Alan & Holman, Nancy & Paccoud, Antoine & Sundaresan, Jayaraj, 2015. "Coordinating density; working through conviction, suspicion and pragmatism," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 56768, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. Ramin Keivani & Michael Mattingly & Hamid Majedi, 2008. "Public Management of Urban Land, Enabling Markets and Low-income Housing Provision: The Overlooked Experience of Iran," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 45(9), pages 1825-1853, August.
    11. Koprencka, Luciana & Muharremi, Oltiana, 2010. "Land market in Albania: Unresolved property ownership rights," Perspectives of Innovations, Economics and Business (PIEB), Prague Development Center (PRADEC), vol. 6(3), pages 1-4, October.
    12. Gabriel Schwake & Haim Yacobi, 2024. "Decolonisation, gentrification, and the settler-colonial city: Reappropriation and new forms of urban exclusion in Israel," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 42(4), pages 618-638, June.
    13. Jenny Muir, 2014. "Neoliberalising a divided society? The regeneration of Crumlin Road Gaol and Girdwood Park, North Belfast," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 29(1-2), pages 52-64, February.
    14. Nick Bailey & Madeleine Pill, 2015. "Can the State Empower Communities through Localism? An Evaluation of Recent Approaches to Neighbourhood Governance in England," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 33(2), pages 289-304, April.
    15. Wei Hu & Shanggang Yin & Haibo Gong, 2022. "Spatial–Temporal Evolution Patterns and Influencing Factors of China’s Urban Housing Price-to-Income Ratio," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-15, December.
    16. Nuno Teles, 2015. "Financialisation and neoliberalism; The case of water provision in Portugal," Working papers wpaper102, Financialisation, Economy, Society & Sustainable Development (FESSUD) Project.
    17. Eric Nazindigouba KERE & Johanna CHOUMERT & Amandine Loyal LARÉ-DONDARINI, 2014. "The impact of water and sanitation access on housing values: The case of Dapaong, Togo," Working Papers 201403, CERDI.
    18. Richard Arnott, 2008. "Housing policy in developing countries. The importance of the informal economy," Working Papers 200801, University of California at Riverside, Department of Economics, revised Jan 2008.
    19. Talia Margalit & Adriana Kemp, 2019. "The uneven geographies of post-political planning: Objections to urban regeneration projects in peripheral and central Israeli cities," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 51(4), pages 931-949, June.
    20. Fox, Sean, 2014. "The Political Economy of Slums: Theory and Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 191-203.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:50:y:2018:i:2:p:288-309. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.