Offsetting Risk in a Neoliberal Environment: The Link between Asset-Based Welfare and NIMBYism

Affordable housing policy in the developed world has been undergoing a systematic commodification for several decades, including a push for homeownership as the normalized tenure and a commodity unto itself. Scholars suggest this push for homeownership is part and parcel of a neoliberal asset-based welfare to supplement, or even outright replace, traditionally defined benefit pension schemes. These policies individualize risk and re-fashion individual citizens as long-term financial planners, navigating the uncertainty inherent in international financial markets and general financial management. Less deeply explored, however, are the perverse incentives this system creates for homeowners to protect their home “investment” by leveraging planning policies, zoning, and land-use restrictions to preserve the community status quo and lock in the value of their home. In a policy environment in which long-term financial risk is individualized and public social welfare and pension systems are relegated to the smallest number of individuals possible, this type of NIMBYism (Not in My Backyard) is rather rational behavior, even as it simultaneously staunches the supply of new housing and drives up prices for non-homeowners. As such, this analysis synthesizes the existing research to make a formal theoretical connection between the neoliberal push for commodified housing, asset-based welfare, and the intractable political problem of NIMBYism.

EVALUASI HUBUNGAN BIAYA INVESTASI TERHADAP KUALITAS KENYAMAN PADA PERUMAHAN

ABSTRACTThe demand for housing has never stopped because the population growth always increased. Technical Guidelines for the Construction of Healthy Houses issued by the Minister of Regional Regional Development states that a house as a place of residence must meet indoor health and comfort requirements which is influenced by lighting, airing, air temperature and humidity. This study uses natural lighting, natural ventilation, room humidity and acoustic comfort as variables. The object of this study is limited to the building area of a maximum of 70 m2 with four sample that maintain the original house shape from the design of the developer. Three out of four houses showed the relation between investment and indoor comfort, the higher investment improve indoor comfort. But, one of them showed different pattern, this is because the investment value is influenced by the accessibility of site and buildings.This study found that indoor comfort is influenced by design factors and micro climates. While home investment is influenced by the design and accessibility of site and buildings.Keywords: indoor comfort, lighting, natural ventilation, humidity, acoustic comfort ABSTRAK Tuntutan adanya sebuah rumah tidak pernah berhenti karena pertumbuhan penduduk yang selalu meningkat. Pedoman Teknis Pembangunan Rumah Sederhana Sehat yang dikeluarkan oleh Menteri Permukiman dan Prasarana Wilayah (2002) menyatakan bahwa rumah sebagai tempat tinggal yang memenuhi syarat kesehatan dan kenyamanan dipengaruhi aspek pencahayaan, penghawaan, serta suhu udara dan kelembaban dalam ruangan. Adapun variabel yang diangkat terdiri dari pencahayaan alami, penghawaan alami, kelembaban ruang dan kebisingan. Objek dari penelitian ini dibatasi pada dengan luas bangunan maksimal 70 m2 dengan empat sampel rumah yang mempertahankan bentuk rumah asli dari desain pengembang. Dari empat rumah, tiga diantara menunjukkan hubungan bahwa semakin tinggi investasi semakin baik kualitas kenyamanan di dalamnya. Akan tetapi satu diantaranya memperlihatkan pola yang berbeda, hal tersebut dikarenakan nilai investasi yang dipengaruhi oleh nilai aksesibilitas lahan dan bangunan. Penelitian ini pada akhirnya mendapatkan hasil bahwa kenyamanan dalam ruang dipengaruhi oleh faktor desain rumah dan iklim mikro. Sedangkan investasi rumah dipengaruhi oleh desain dan nilai aksesibilitas lahan dan bangunan. Kata kunci: kenyamanan dalam ruang, pencahayaan, penghawaan, kelembaban, kebisingan

British Investment in Argentina and Long Swings, 1880–1914

British investment in Argentina in the period 1880–1914 amounted to some 8 percent of total British overseas investment; it exhibited long swings which were roughly similar to long swings in total British overseas investment but opposite to British domestic investment, although the bursts of lending to Argentina were particularly concentrated. These swings have attracted the attention of economists and some (notably Brinley Thomas) have pointed out that emigration from Europe to North America and American investment in construction and transportation and other series in the American economy exhibited 18–20 year swings similar to those in British overseas investment, and that these were all in opposite phase to swings in British home investment and the building cycle in Britain. They have then gone on to explain these inverse British patterns in terms of emigration and the growth rhythm of the Atlantic economy, with heavy stress being laid on North American effects. The analysis of movements of both labor and capital can then be conducted in terms of the varying intensities of the pull of opportunities at home and abroad, and the push of home conditions and prospects, and how these interacted with each other to produce these inverse patterns.

Fluctuations in House-Building in Britain and the United States in the Nineteenth Century

The notion that an “Atlantic Economy” developed in the nineteenth century does not depend simply on the large movements of capital and labor from Britain to the United States. For there were movements of comparable magnitude to other areas. If the economic relations of Britain and North America are to be regarded as distinctive, it is principally because of the reciprocal movement of investment and growth in the two areas. The argument is that the periods of most rapid growth and intensive use of resources in the two economies were inversely related to each other, and that this alternation was established because there existed a common stock of resources, so that when one area drew rapidly on this stock it was at the expense of the other. At one time, investment in buildings and equipment in the United States was particularly rapid, and there was a heavy movement of migrants to America; in Britain the stream of migrants from the countryside was diverted from the industrial districts, and building and home investment were relatively depressed, but the vigorous demand for exports facilitated the flow of funds abroad. In the next period, the position was reversed; development slackened in the United States, and there was a revival of domestic investment in Britain. This, as Phelps-Brown has said, “is the pattern of the Atlantic Economy, dividing a common fund of incremental energies between its regions in varying proportions from time to time. Whether a house is built in Oldham depends on and is decided by whether a house goes up in Oklahoma.”