Housing Policy and Housing-System Models in Some Socialist Countries

In this paper I shall try to analyse a number of variants of the housing-system model prevalent in the socialist countries of Europe and to outline the tendencies of housing policy. When I speak of a ‘model’ here, I mean something rather different from what is generally meant by an economic model. In the paper which follows the word model will be used to signify the fundamental principles which characterize the organization and working of the housing system within a given economic system.2 Just as one may speak, in this sense, of different models of the socialist economy, one may also speak of different models of the housing system. What is meant are not theoretical macro-economic models, but institutional models.3