# Which city has the best modern public housing?



## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

^^ I don't think a social housing scheme can be deemed successful when it is the only option for the majority of the population of a country. If more than half of the population of a country needs public housing, there is something inherently flawed in its real estate markets.

Rent-to-own schemes were devised in Europe before Singapore even attained its independence...


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## koolio (Jan 5, 2008)

A new social housing apartment in Toronto:









http://designcrave.com/2010-03-26/6...st-housing-development-by-teeple-architects3/









http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/showthread.php/5773-Photo-Of-The-Day/page47


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## isaidso (Mar 21, 2007)

Manila-X said:


> These are more *condos* than public housing. Though it is built in an area with a high concentration of public housing and is being gentrified.


Actually the market rate condo units and the subsidized housing units are indistinguishable; they look the same. The development is a mixture of the 2 and built deliberately that way. The photos of 'condos' I posted *are* public housing.


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

^^ Social housing shouldn't be so posh that middle class families feel angered because people on welfare or earning half of them have a much nicer place to live thanks to social housing programs.


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## VECTROTALENZIS (Jul 10, 2010)

Suburbanist said:


> ^^ I don't think a social housing scheme can be deemed successful when it is the only option for the majority of the population of a country. If more than half of the population of a country needs public housing, there is something inherently flawed in its real estate markets.
> 
> Rent-to-own schemes were devised in Europe before Singapore even attained its independence...


Housing in Singapore is controlled so that the central urban planning can plan with efficiency and save land. 85% live in public housing.


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

^^ You can control the built-up environment with zoning and ordinances, without the need to interfere with housing property.


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## isaidso (Mar 21, 2007)

Suburbanist said:


> ^^ Social housing shouldn't be so posh that middle class families feel angered because people on welfare or earning half of them have a much nicer place to live thanks to social housing programs.


If people are angry that someone unfortunate has been given a home they can be proud of that speaks volumes about how selfish and petty they are. I have zero sympathy for people that have so little concern for others and are satisfied as long as they have more than the person next to them. I run into low lifes like that once in a while: they just turn my stomach. They measure their worth by how much money they have. YUCK YUCK YUCK! Just gross!

That type of thinking has no place in Canadian society.


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## BE0GRAD (May 29, 2010)

isaidso said:


> If people are angry that someone unfortunate has been given a home they can be proud of that speaks volumes about how selfish and petty they are. I have zero sympathy for people that have so little concern for others and are satisfied as long as they have more than the person next to them. I run into low lifes like that once in a while: they just turn my stomach. They measure their worth by how much money they have. YUCK YUCK YUCK! Just gross!


You do, of course, realize that Suburbanist is one of those people.


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## Skyrazer (Sep 9, 2009)

Suburbanist said:


> ^^ I don't think a social housing scheme can be deemed successful when it is the only option for the majority of the population of a country. If more than half of the population of a country needs public housing, there is something inherently flawed in its real estate markets.
> 
> Rent-to-own schemes were devised in Europe before Singapore even attained its independence...


Yes, it's so unsuccessful, it's resulted in Singapore having a 0% (or just about) homeless rate and the highest home ownership rate in the world at 89%. Oh the horror! :|

Funny that I never hear any Singaporeans complain about their public housing scheme. I guess it's so terrible, they just don't want to complain because the thought of their HDB housing is just too much to bear.


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## johnnypd (Oct 13, 2002)

I actually think it's pretty dumb to post all these new public housing developments in this thread. most new public housing projects look all slick and shiny when they are brand sparkling new. even those dumps from the 60s looked marvellous when first erected, before poor maintenance, design flaws and social problems took their toll. also the majority of public housing is likely to be a fair bit older in any given place.

to get a truer picture, examples younger than, say, 15 or 20 years should not be allowed.


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## VECTROTALENZIS (Jul 10, 2010)

johnnypd said:


> I actually think it's pretty dumb to post all these new public housing developments in this thread. most new public housing projects look all slick and shiny when they are brand sparkling new. even those dumps from the 60s looked marvellous when first erected, before poor maintenance, design flaws and social problems took their toll. also the majority of public housing is likely to be a fair bit older in any given place.
> 
> to get a truer picture, examples younger than, say, 15 or 20 years should not be allowed.


Public housing in Hong Kong and Singapore don't have ghetto's like those in Europe. They are well-maintained and there are no rund-downed areas in Singapore. Even those from the 50s-70s look nice with no social problems.


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## GENIUS LOCI (Nov 18, 2004)

johnnypd said:


> I actually think it's pretty dumb to post all these new public housing developments in this thread. most new public housing projects look all slick and shiny when they are brand sparkling new. even those dumps from the 60s looked marvellous when first erected, before poor maintenance, design flaws and social problems took their toll. also the majority of public housing is likely to be a fair bit older in any given place.
> 
> to get a truer picture, examples younger than, say, 15 or 20 years should not be allowed.


Because of the thread title, I assumed that 'modern' was referred to recently built public housing


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## GENIUS LOCI (Nov 18, 2004)

VECTROTALENZIS said:


> Public housing in Hong Kong and Singapore don't have ghetto's like those in Europe.


I don't know about Singapore, but HK... are you sure? No run down areas?


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## johnnypd (Oct 13, 2002)

GENIUS LOCI said:


> Because of the thread title, I assumed that 'modern' was referred to recently built public housing


fair enough, but in my mind that means post-war onward. modern as opposed to new.

vectro - i wasn't really referring to singapore or hong kong in my post, as some of those pics show buildings that are still a bit lived in. as for the interiors, i am told they are very nice, but the outsides look quite bland and oppressive and some older HK stock seems to suffer badly from the humidity. in terms of aesthetics neither are much to write home about.


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## Spookvlieger (Jul 10, 2009)

^^I did post from Belgium build in the 40's, 60's, 70's , 80's and 90's....


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## GENIUS LOCI (Nov 18, 2004)

johnnypd said:


> fair enough, but in my mind that means post-war onward. modern as opposed to new.


Modern could mean even since 1800 

Anyway this doesn't change my impression that Netherland ones are the best, even if in post war, as everybody, they've done even commieblocks like buildings.

For Milan I could provide tons of pics if you're interested, as post war public housing is a lot ('60s and '70s were the boom years of public housing settlements)
But they still are in good shape normally, because of a general good maintenance. And today most of 'em are not even public housing anymore because they sold a big part of social housing real estate, mainly to inhabitants.
They just are mainly commieblocks.

The worst maintenance and social problems, at contrary, in Milan are in some prewar social housing. Anyway there are not real 'ghettos' and run down areas


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## Spookvlieger (Jul 10, 2009)

GENIUS LOCI said:


> Modern could mean even since 1800


I present you: Cité Hellemans, Brussels, build in 1915. The first Social housing in Belgium. (renovated in 2006, still social appartments)









http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1346/1360568923_1e4e12a261.jpg









http://www.globalview.be/pictures/big/A_24338.jpg









http://www.robertmehl.de/de/Architekturfotografie/cite-hellemans_bruessel_2006-07-23_44_31_7.jpg









http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._Hellemans_08.JPG/501px-Cité_Hellemans_08.JPG









http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._Hellemans_06.JPG/640px-Cité_Hellemans_06.JPG


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## Spookvlieger (Jul 10, 2009)

Another eraly example from Belgium

Geelhandplaats, Antwerp, 1933









http://www.landezine.com/wp-content...plaats-OMGEVING-landscape-architecture-01.jpg









http://archpick.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/colourful-town-carpet3.jpg


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## GENIUS LOCI (Nov 18, 2004)

One of the first post war districts to be built in Milan was QT8 (which has its name as acronimous of _Quartiere Triennale 8_, from the VIII Triennial Exhibition of Architecture held in 1947). It was an experimental district where many new methods of construction from many nations were used and many architects from many parts of the world took part. With social houses with different tipolgies, facilities and lot of greenery (even an artificial hill 60 m high); its 'creator' was the Italian architect Piero Bottoni



> QT8 developed from an experimental urbanization project that was conceived during the 8th edition of the Triennale di Milano design exhibition that was held in 1947, at the beginning of the reconstruction of Milan after World War II. Architect Piero Bottoni was the main promoter of the project, which included the realization of Monte Stella, an artificial hill made of the debris of the buildings that had collapsed during the war.
> 
> Construction began in 1946-1947, with the realization of several heterougeneous housing units. In 1948, the first four-stories prefabricated houses in Italy were completed in QT8. Much effort was put in the realization of green areas such as playgrounds, neighbourhood gardens, and a 375.000 m² city park. As a result, QT8 is one of the greener district in Milan.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QT8

QT8 district original plan









Under construction


























































































View of the district


















http://fondazione.ordinearchitetti....tinerari_id,20/show,scheda?SSID=rzrrathfhqien

You can find other interesting Milan public housing here http://fondazione.ordinearchitetti....erari.View/itinerari_id,20?SSID=rzrrathfhqien


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

isaidso said:


> Actually the market rate condo units and the subsidized housing units are indistinguishable; they look the same. The development is a mixture of the 2 and built deliberately that way. The photos of 'condos' I posted *are* public housing.


These buildings may look impressive on the outside but how about the inside? Though quality of life for the lower class in Canada is better compared to those in other countries.

But due to its slick design, I'm sure future tenants will maintain it well and make it secured.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

VECTROTALENZIS said:


> Public housing in Hong Kong and Singapore don't have ghetto's like those in Europe. They are well-maintained and there are no rund-downed areas in Singapore. Even those from the 50s-70s look nice with no social problems.


HK does have it's own ghettos even if there are well planned public housing. Such example would be Kowloon Walled City before it was demolished in the 1990s.










The areas within Mong Kok to Sham Shui Po has high concentrations of tenements and lower class housing.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

Suburbanist said:


> ^^ Social housing shouldn't be so posh that middle class families feel angered because people on welfare or earning half of them have a much nicer place to live thanks to social housing programs.


Let's take this to Bertrand Goldberg's quote on this design for Raymond Hilliard Homes in Chicago. It is one of the best designed public housing projects in The US.

http://bertrandgoldberg.org/projects/raymond-hillard-homes/

_"Meant as a new solution to public housing woes, Raymond Hilliard was built to be a structure which residents would be proud to live in. Goldberg felt that much public-housing was designed in such a way to make the poor feel that they were punished for being poor and did little other than warehouse them. As stated by Goldberg in a 1965 promotional piece, "their architecture must meet them and recognize them, not simply store them." Residents were chosen from records of model citizenry in other housing projects, and for many years this was the only public housing complex which needed no constant police supervision. The unusual tower shapes maximized the space allowed by Public Housing Authority standards while creating a sense of community and openness."

QUOTE: "The revolutionary design theories that Goldberg developed for Marina City were applied here to the problem of public housing, creating what is still regarded as one of the city's best examples of humane high-rise living for low-income families."
- AIA Guide to Chicago_


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## SE9 (Apr 26, 2005)

johnnypd said:


> I actually think it's pretty dumb to post all these new public housing developments in this thread. most new public housing projects look all slick and shiny when they are brand sparkling new. even those dumps from the 60s looked marvellous when first erected, before poor maintenance, design flaws and social problems took their toll. also the majority of public housing is likely to be a fair bit older in any given place.
> 
> to get a truer picture, examples younger than, say, 15 or 20 years should not be allowed.


The guy is asking for modern examples:



thisisme said:


> Which city has the best modern public housing?


Given that 99% of public housing around the world was built within the last 100 years, "modern" in this context constitutes what's _current_ (in the present).... not from 1900-1980s.

Although everything built now looks 'slick and shiny', there is still variation in form, design, density and layout from place to place.


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

I think I need to extend my remarks.

First, if someone has full ownership of a house, I don't consider it a social housing unit, even if it were in the past. It is home ownership subsidization, like many other program such as mortgage tax credits and the likes, which might or might no be good on themselves. 

Now, I'm not saying social housing in its strict sense should look like a slum. However, in many cases, restrictive laws on further development created by the government (both horizontally and vertically) are the first and foremost cause by which social housing is needed first place. And, then, I think it is inherently wrong to put social housing on the best locations of a city because I think it should be a remedial program, not a way-of-life anyone should count on relying from cradle to grave.


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## Spookvlieger (Jul 10, 2009)

Manila-X said:


> The areas within Mong Kok to Sham Shui Po has high concentrations of tenements and lower class housing.


There are also buildings in HK like Chungking mansions:


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

joshsam said:


> There are also buildings in HK like Chungking mansions:


Chungking Mansions is interesting for the fact you have a very international atmosphere under one building.


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## davemon14 (Aug 30, 2012)

Bonifacio Global City and the Makati CBD - complete with outstanding choices of international dining alternatives, stylish boutiques and homeware galleries lining the main streets. Good thing, my condominium unit from Cypress Towers is just one- ride away from the area.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

davemon14 said:


> Bonifacio Global City and the Makati CBD - complete with outstanding choices of international dining alternatives, stylish boutiques and homeware galleries lining the main streets. Good thing, my condominium unit from Cypress Towers is just one- ride away from the area.


We are talking about *public housing*, not private or luxury condos.

And the places you have mentioned are complete opposites in contrast of the said topic.


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## sky-eye (Jan 2, 2003)

@Mr Dru

E 900 to E 1200 euro for a rental appartment with 2 sleep chambres ? where i live (Sittard/ south Netherlands) for that money you get almost a big luxuery penthouse. I know that Amsterdam and most of the randstad is very expensive to live, but there are huge differences in prizes dependable where you live. Ok, the regio Sittard-Heerlen is almost the cheapest in the Netherlands.


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## goschio (Dec 2, 2002)

Suburbanist said:


> ^^ Social housing shouldn't be so posh that middle class families feel angered because people on welfare or earning half of them have a much nicer place to live thanks to social housing programs.


Totally agree. Its extremely unfair toward the middle class family who worked hard and paid a little fortune for their condo with a long term mortgage while the welfare family gets the same for free. 

Social housing is important but it should be clearly below the typical middle class standard. At least from the inside.


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## Spookvlieger (Jul 10, 2009)

goschio said:


> Totally agree. Its extremely unfair toward the middle class family who worked hard and paid a little fortune for their condo with a long term mortgage while the welfare family gets the same for free.
> 
> Social housing is important but it should be clearly below the typical middle class standard.* At least from the inside.*


They are. how good and modern the new social housin may look on the outside, those houses and appartments have very little living space...


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## GENIUS LOCI (Nov 18, 2004)

Not at all


At least in Italy. In Milan for istance the public housing of the beginning of XX century is often substandards with many small apartments, But post war ones have normally the standard living spaces of middle class apartments.
Not a case that many post war public housing building were sold to privates (often the ones who were still living in) while the oldest ones often remain public. The last ones have too small spaces and if people living in get enough income to buy a house chose to buy somewhere else with more spaces.


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## Spookvlieger (Jul 10, 2009)

GENIUS LOCI said:


> Not at all
> 
> 
> At least in Italy. In Milan for istance the public housing of the beginning of XX century is often substandards with many small apartments, But post war ones have normally the standard living spaces of middle class apartments.
> Not a case that many post war public housing building were sold to privates (often the ones who were still living in) while the oldest ones often remain public. The last ones have too small spaces and if people living in get enough income to buy a house chose to buy somewhere else with more spaces.


In Belgium there is a most of the times a clear line between the m2 a middle class can pay for and what is considered social housing. Older social housing and appartments are actually bigger compaired to more modern estates in Belgium. But also lots of those older ones have been sold to privates and are now middle class. Most of the cases because they are situated in highly disired area.


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## the spliff fairy (Oct 21, 2002)

goschio said:


> Totally agree. Its extremely unfair toward the middle class family who worked hard and paid a little fortune for their condo with a long term mortgage while the welfare family gets the same for free.
> 
> Social housing is important but it should be clearly below the typical middle class standard. At least from the inside.


They tried that in the postwar years - and in strictly monetary terms, society ends up paying billions more in resulting crime and security costs and for exponentially growing general social costs (eg even more social housing, benefits, cleaning, child support, counselling etc), as entire generations grow up disaffected and poverty is propagated and perpetuated. Everyone in the local area ends up paying far higher council tax too, including the hallowed middle classes.

If you want to get rid of the 'problem' of having a working class:

1. replace all their jobs with robots then deport or kill them all.

2. stop them having children (Singapore infamously looked into having a campaign to encourage working class mothers to have less children during the 1980s, before there was media and social uproar).

3. Island them apart and hope they don't get out, or breed more 'islands'. You can restrict their movement and even build walls around these areas. See favelas, townships and ghettoes.

4. House them cheek by jowl with everyone else in mixed neighbourhoods and offer their children the same opportunities and schools as the middle and upper classes. They will grow up and join the middle classes. If all goes to plan crime will increase initially as the monied and impoverished classes come into closer contact, and the nouveaux riches still dabble in the illegal, then fall considerably after. It should take about 2 generations.


London and UK in general has taken the fourth option after the postwar years - 30-50% of London developments (over 40 units) now must have their properties devoted to affordable housing, even if it's a luxury condo block, and in Victorian tradition poor and rich share the same areas if not walls, and often swapping (such as yuppies colonising tower blocks or mansion houses being subdivided up into bedsits). It's been about 1 and a half generations since, and almost all my middle class acquaintances, getting Firsts at uni, becoming my bosses at work, globetrotting in finance, making it as artists or musicians etc come from impoverished families. One of my most academic boho artist-musician-poet-writer etc friends comes from a criminal gipsy family, which is unheard of in the generations before him. Strange to find a chav family home with a room filled with Sartre and contemporary art (not nicked). Similarly the guy getting a First from the London School of Economics comes from an Eritrean family in council housing, the other living in Dubai doing finance came here as a Somali refugee kid, my manageress at the museum came from the worst estate in the Midlands, my psychologist friend brought herself up in council accommodation after her Trinidadian parents split and mother died.

Of course as one working class generation moves on, a new one replaces it, made up of migrants from home and abroad, and thousands who remain falling through the gaps. London for all it's social crusading still has 40% of its kids growing up in poverty and 3 of the 5 most impoverished boroughs in the country, and some of the highest income disparities in the West (2011 riots anyone?). But for these new policies the country would be far worse and facing vast ghettoes otherwise, and all the crime and divisive social problems that go with them. Crime is now much improved over the all-time high in the 90's and almost every area of the capital is seeing in regeneration in a good way, from the Docklands to the Olympics, the hip East End and South. Genuine homelessness has been all but wiped out, drug addiction rates vastly improved, child abuse, lawlessness, drunkenness gradually improving year by year.


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

Manila-X said:


> We are talking about *public housing*, not private or luxury condos.
> 
> And the places you have mentioned are complete opposites in contrast of the said topic.


The tenements and lower class housing in Mongkok and Sham Shui Po, plus the former ghettos at Kowloon Walled City, and Chungking Mansions *are not* government-funded public housing. 

In fact, the Kowloon Walled City ghetto pre-dates the first public housing estate in Hong Kong, which was built following the Shek Kip Mei fire in the 1950's.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

hkskyline said:


> The tenements and lower class housing in Mongkok and Sham Shui Po, plus the former ghettos at Kowloon Walled City, and Chungking Mansions *are not* government-funded public housing.
> 
> In fact, the Kowloon Walled City ghetto pre-dates the first public housing estate in Hong Kong, which was built following the Shek Kip Mei fire in the 1950's.


I meant this areas are predominantly lower class neighborhoods, not public housing.


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## JayT (Sep 11, 2002)

SINGAPORE in my view has the best public housing. Though Queensland (my state) has fantastic public housing which is being copied all over the country (Brisbane Housing Corporation) and the quality would be above Singapore, we have not created public housing even close to the scale other countries have. Singapore has the best based on mass and the creation of entire communities. I did a lot of research during my uni years and found Singapore (HDB) to be amazing.


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

the spliff fairy said:


> If you want to get rid of the 'problem' of having a working class:


Working class is a broader term that encompasses much more than people living in deep poverty and unable to pay for housing. However, in certain major metropolitan areas poor people should have just to put up with the fact they need to live further and endure longer commutes. It is not a "right" to live within short distance of your workplace in expensive cities like London, New York etc.



> 4. House them cheek by jowl with everyone else in mixed neighbourhoods and offer their children the same opportunities and schools as the middle and upper classes. They will grow up and join the middle classes. If all goes to plan crime will increase initially as the monied and impoverished classes come into closer contact, and the nouveaux riches still dabble in the illegal, then fall considerably after. It should take about 2 generations.


I think you are being overly dramatic. Even if most minimum wage workers of London were leaving outside the M25 ring, that doesn't mean other alternatives would be only dystopian ones. If people can commute, problem is solved. And they still can get good education, good health care etc.

I see no benefit for middle class households to be forced to live up in close proximity with poor people on social housing. It is like forcing them to bear the burnt of dysfunctional families, drugged and drunk adults etc. that are overrepresented among the most poor (since those are likely causes of many cases of chronic poverty).

In fact, I consider negative for children to be exposed too much to these realities close to home, I'd rather NOT have my children or early teen have to study or live in a place with a substantial population of low-aspiration kids, disgruntled kids coming from families whose parents 'couldn't care less' let alone the child of a "small thieve family". Leave those harsh realities for when the kid is adult.

There is the opposite argument that you make, that giving "examples" of more successful households, tailgating into someone else's political power/local activism or studying with kids with more aspirations in life make poor families better, but, hey, adults are responsible for themselves and middle class families don't have obligation to babysit the dysfunctional members of society. Free education, a small but adequate residence in a project, free healthcare are already a nice, and justifiable, social equalizers that don't make those past that stage having to bear the direct, day-to-day impact of dealing with the various effects of poverty.

But the whole issue is tricky, in Netherlands social housing is big, covers far more than just the very poor. 

=========================================

Last, but not least, obliging the addition of affordable housing in new developments to make them 'mixed-income' only drives up the prices of 'non-affordable' units and penalizes most... the middle class households who earn enough not to qualify for social housing, but not enough to pay the marginal price impacts of affordable housing mandates on development level.


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## the spliff fairy (Oct 21, 2002)

If you so easily categorise and divide people, then deal with the consequences


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

the spliff fairy said:


> If you so easily categorise and divide people, then deal with the consequences


I'm not dividing, I'm thinking more of letting the real estate market do its job unfettered.


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