How can housing be delivered at a large scale in ways that strengthen and enhance social justice? Building on a discourse of social justice in relation to housing this report constructs an analytical framework for 3 different pathways through which millions of people have accessed housing in the second half of the past century in Sweden, Sri Lanka, and Greece. These are characterised by: the direct construction of housing in the periphery of Swedish cities, Miljonprogrammet, 1965-1974; the facilitation of self-building by the poor throughout Sri-Lanka, The Million Houses Programme, 1984-1993; and the institutionalisation of partnerships between landowners and constructors for apartment buildings in Greece, Antiparochi-Polykatoikia, 1950-1980. The three case studies offer an opportunity to examine, respectively, housing a physical and spatial production, a (self-) building process interweaved in community development, as well as a set of legal and institutional conditions that direct it, i.e., housing seen through a lens zooming out from the house-product to the housing-process to the enabling conditions, that respectively in each case have been the catalyst in its delivery. The report discusses context, features, and outcomes of each, before critically analysing their impact in terms of advancing social justice and the right to housing. Through such a comparative analysis, the report ultimately identifies features that may support a socially just housing model.

1. Housing for Millions
Looking for justice along the journeys from land to
housing in Sweden, Greece, and Sri Lanka
A dissertation submitted in partial
fulfilment of the requirements for the
MSc Urban Development Planning
10,857 words
Yiorgos Papamanousakis
MSc Urban Development Planning
Supervisor: Jorge Fiori
Development Planning Unit
University College London
London, 2 September 2019

2. ii
Abstract
How can housing be delivered at a large scale in ways that strengthen and enhance
social justice? Based on a discourse of social justice this report discusses 3 different
pathways through which millions of people have accessed housing in the second half
of the past century defined by: the direct construction of housing in the periphery of
Swedish cities, Miljonprogrammet, 1965-1974; the facilitation of self-building by the
poor throughout Sri-Lanka, The Million Houses Programme, 1984-1993; and the
institutionalisation of partnerships between landowners and constructors for
apartment buildings in Greece, Antiparochi-Polykatoikia, 1950-1980. The three case
studies examine housing through a lens zooming out from the house-product to the
housing-process to housing’s enabling conditions. The report describes context,
features, and outcomes of each, discusses them in terms of social justice, seeking
elements of a socially just housing model.

3. iii
Contents
Table of figures 4
1. Introduction 5
2. Scope 6
Research aims
Method
3. Discourse, action, theory 8
Housing as a means to human development
What does justice looks like?
4. Three journeys to housing for millions 13
Sweden: Miljonprogrammet
Sri Lanka: The Million Houses Programme
Greece: Antiparochi–Polykatoikia
5. Looking for justice 39
6. Conclusion and recommendations 49
References 52

4. iv
Table of figures
1. Tensta, Stockholm, 1971 19
2. Tensta, Stockholm, aerial view 20
3. Tensta, Stockholm, street approach 21
4. Nawagampura, Colombo, main street 28
5. Nawagampura, Colombo, neighbourhood 29
6. Nawagampura, Colombo, house and street 30
7. Zografos, Athens, aerial view 35
8. Polykatoikia, Athens 36
9. Polykatoikias along small street 37
10. From land to housing, Miljonprogrammet 40
11. From land to housing, The Million Houses Programme 41
12. From land to housing, Antiparochi–Polykatoikia 42

5. 5
1. Introduction
Within and amongst many of the world’s cities inequalities are on the rise.
Their reflection in housing is revealing. The first UN report on the world’s slums
found that at the turn of the century, 1 billion people lived in slums, more than 30%
of the world’s total urban population (UN Habitat 2003). These slums continue to
grow; if no action is taken the number of people living in slums is expected to double
to about 2 billion in the next 30 years. At the same time housing in the world’s major
cities is becoming increasingly unaffordable. According to UN research only 13% of
cities have affordable housing (Kallergis et al. 2018). London is the least affordable
city in Western Europe with the average monthly rent and mortgage payments equal
to about 135% of monthly net income, a ratio that while absurd is dwarfed by a 3849%
housing cost per pay ratio, in Caracas, the least affordable city in the world (Brodie
2017).
Decades of a global neoliberal economic consensus have entrenched an
ideology of a growth-driven but value-less pursuit of prosperity where even
something so fundamental to human development as shelter can be reduced to a
market-delivered product and a profit-generating asset. In this context the
establishment of an alternative values-based compass for urban development, beyond
growth and above the market, appears as a fundamental urgency; the formulation of
alternative ways into housing appears equally urgent. This report is crafting a social
justice compass to navigate 3 different journeys through which housing for millions
of people has been produced in Sweden, Greece, and Sri Lanka, within the second half
of the past century. It does so with much hope that social justice can be a meaningful
indicator of success, and indeed indicate towards solutions for a meaningfully
prosperous future.

6. 6
2. Scope
Research aims
Housing throughout time and across societies, has been a primary human need
and a foundation of human development. As such, housing, as a set of policies,
processes, and outcomes, has been a prominent theme in the agendas of local,
national, and international urban development stakeholders from politicians to the
grassroots. The overarching question that guides the research in this report is how
can housing be delivered at a large scale in ways that strengthen and enhance social
justice. What role can different stakeholders involved take, from the state to the
individual, and how does their form and strength of agency over different steps of the
housing process shape just outcomes? On what kind of outputs should a just housing
policy focus beyond just a dwelling, as well as before it, and in what ways can these
constitute enabling conditions for a consequent expansion of access to housing and
housing affordability? How much wider do these outputs of housing processes extend
their impact and can they generate a truly transformative change?
Method
Building on a discourse of social justice in relation to housing this report
constructs an analytical framework for 3 different pathways through which millions
of people have accessed housing in the second half of the past century in Sweden, Sri
Lanka, and Greece. These are characterised by: the direct construction of housing in
the periphery of Swedish cities, Miljonprogrammet, 1965-1974; the provision of land,
finance, and technical support for the facilitation of self-building by the urban and
rural poor throughout Sri-Lanka, The Million Houses Programme, 1984-1993; and the
institutionalisation of partnerships between small landowners and small construction
companies for the production of urban apartment buildings in Greece, Antiparochi-
Polykatoikia, 1950-1980. The three case studies offer an opportunity to examine,

7. 7
respectively, housing a physical and spatial production, a (self-) building process
interweaved in community development, as well as a set of legal and institutional
conditions that direct it, i.e., housing seen through a lens zooming out from the
house-product to the housing-process to the enabling conditions, that respectively in
each case have been the catalyst in its delivery. The report discusses context,
features, and outcomes of each, before critically analysing their impact in terms of
advancing social justice and the right to housing. Through such a comparative
analysis, the report ultimately identifies features that may support a socially just
housing model.

8. 8
3. Discourse, action, theory
Housing as a means to human development
The second half of the 20th century, the period within which the 3 journeys to
housing lie, is rich with experimentation and new ideas for housing. Criticising the
dominant paradigm of ‘housing as a noun’, in which state or private entities, external
to the dweller and their community, plan, regulate, and provide, housing products for
the people as consumers, Turner called for a reconceptualization of ‘housing as a
verb’: a means to each one’s ends, an activity decided and controlled by the users
themselves the principal actors of the process (Turner 1972). His ideas have had a
ripple effect on policy responses to housing in the Global South, with institutions and
practitioners alike shifting from direct provision to aided self-help and sites-and-
services approaches, retreating from direct construction in favour of community
development and social infrastructure (Wakely 1988). The resourcefulness of people
leading housing for their own development, in their ways, is also recognised in the
reconceptualisation of development models in Southern Europe. Leontidou argues for
the role of popular spontaneity and ‘popular land colonisation’ as integral in the
social transformation of post-war Athens and the Mediterranean city (Leontidou
1990). On the other hand the welfare state housing models of Northern Europe have
long considered housing as a state-led state-controlled institutionalised effort with a
focus on the direct provision of high-quality dwellings. Yet as post-war housing
estates often become synonymous with social malaise, tabula-rasa Modernism starts
to give way to a soul-searching for the lost ‘heart’ of the city, community, and the
‘human scale’.
The role of housing as a guarantor for human development and a basis for an
adequate standard of living has been highlighted in a number of local and

9. 9
international policy responses aiming to reclaim housing from a process of
production based on economic value and into a model of a socially just urban
development based on rights. These are aligned with a number of international
treaties collectively constituting international human rights law. It is exactly as part
of the right to an adequate standard of living that the right to housing is guaranteed
in article 11(1) of the International Covenant of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights
(ICESCR): “the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his
family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous
improvement of living conditions” (OHCHR 1966). Recognising the persistence of a
housing crisis despite the existence of an international legal framework, the UN
Human Rights Council has in 2000 created a distinct mandate of the “Special
Rapporteur on adequate housing” in order to “promote, facilitate and achieve change
that resituates human rights as the priority and underlying principle in all actions
regarding housing, by both public and private actors” (OHCHR 2019).
Some city authorities themselves have inscribed the notion of a right to
housing within their plans and trans-national cooperation. Barcelona in 2017 has
adopted a Right to Housing Plan in order to “ensure the social function of housing
and that the building of a public housing service goes ahead on a par with the best
practices of other European cities“ (Ajuntament de Barcelona 2016). In 2018, building
on the New Urban Agenda, Habitat III and supported by the UN Special Rapporteur
for adequate housing and the inter-municipal platform of United Cities and Local
Government, the mayors of Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, London, Montevideo,
Montreal, New York, and Paris, have endorsed a joint declaration for the Right to
housing and the Right to the City. Berlin has recently approved, June 2019, a freezing
of rents for the next five years following citizen mobilization demanding more
affordable housing (BBC News 2019). At national level too, the Labour Party in the
UK stresses the fundamental role of land in the housing crisis and “our ability to
create our own homes” putting forward proposals for structural changes in the way
land is used and governed which aim to reverse social injustices entrenched by
decades of neo-liberal policy and housing and land financialisation (Monbiot et al.
2019).

10. 10
What does justice look like?
Beyond policy, calls for change are even stronger in civil society.
Communities, activists and new social movements across the world, from Extinction
Rebellion in the UK to the World Social Forum in Brazil, reject the dominant
development paradigm and its local manifestations. What unites them, empowers
them, and mobilises them is a shared feeling of injustice. Indeed, there are few things
more powerful to mobilise action for change than the feeling of injustice. Social
justice then constitutes the shared objective of a diverse network of actors at activism
and policy spheres with a focus on housing. But how does justice look like? What
indicates justice? How can a justice-based reference framework be established to
challenge economic growth as a measure of success?
Discourses on justice have been mostly dominated by the distributive
paradigm, notably sine the influential publication of Rawls’ Theory of Justice (Rawls
2009). Distributive Justice focuses on the fair distribution of wealth, resources,
opportunities, among the members of society. For the purposes of urban development
we can conceptualise distributive justice for example as citizens experiencing an
equal share of the impact of urban development, an equality of outcomes. The
distributive paradigm underpins the welfare state model of Western European social
democracies where through high taxation, tax revenue from those with high incomes
is being redistributed through the provision of social services and benefits to those on
lower incomes. State and public sector intervention, financed through progressive
income-based taxation, in order to provide affordable housing is a form of
distributive justice. Similarly agrarian reform and land allocation policies in certain
countries in the context of political or economic transitions, as was the case notably
in Greece in the early 20th
century (Doukas 1945), have aimed at an equitable
redistribution of land, i.e., wealth.
The focus on fair ‘end-state’ distributions is however one of the key points of
criticism of the distributive paradigm. Scholars note that social justice cannot be
achieved by outcomes, end-state distributions, produced through structures and
processes that may themselves be unjust; the argument put forward is that unjust
structures and processes will reflect the dominant hierarchies of power and seek to

11. 11
maintain them. Therefore, it is argued that an institutional justice of processes,
focusing on the ways outcomes are distributed is as much if not more relevant (Young
2011). This criticism of the process can often be seen in relation to issues of
governance and aid in the Global South. For example, while aid from the North to the
South may aim at reducing income inequality by material support towards the urban
poor, the international NGO ecosystem has at times been criticised for “labelling
people for aid” (Eyben 2013) and contributing in the further weakening of governance
processes inside developing countries themselves; local development is globally
outsourced whereas unjust local governance structures that may have been the source
of inequality in the first place continue to operate, often at the behest of the
benevolent North, and the self-reliance and capabilities of communities in need is
further reduced.
A more recent discourse on justice underpinning but not identical to the
identity politics discourses post-1968 stresses the oppression experienced by specific
groups in society because of their gender, origins, socioeconomic and cultural
background and practices, ethnicity, sexuality, faith, or disability. These groups may
experience a ‘double inequality’ which, unless their difference and its impacts are
properly recognised, cannot be addressed solely through a distributional equality
approach and call for a combined approach (Fraser 1995). Slum dwellers inhabiting
land which might not be formally registered in institutional and state bureaucracy,
can have their livelihoods devastated and own houses destructed in a land reform or
development scheme unless the specific nature of their own informal process of
settlement is acknowledged and given equal status and value as the formal
institutionalised housing process. Just recognition calls, in essence, for recognising
the diversity of being a human in ways different but equally valued to those of the
dominant majorities reflected, through not always obvious, in pre-established
societal norms.
Transitioning from discourse into action, social justice underpins rights-based
approaches to urban development gaining momentum in the nexus amongst
international legal frameworks, such as the UN declaration of human rights, local
government programmes and agencies, and social movements. Integral in the
popularisation and spatialisation of the aforementioned dimensions of justice—

12. 12
equality of outcomes, democracy of process, recognition of difference—has been the
concept of the Right to the City, first proposed by Henri Lefebvre and developed by a
number of theorists since, notably David Harvey (Lefebvre 1967; Harvey 2008).
Participating in the making of our cities, the freedom to access the resources of the
city, as well as the ability to remake ourselves in and through a transformed city
(Harvey 2008), are ideas that ground social justice in urban space and resonate both
with grassroots activists and institutional advocates of a human rights approach to
the city. Notably, the right to the city brings in an additional dimension of justice. In
its call for a transformed collective urban life offering the possibilities for furthering
oneself and the universal right of each one to be different (Dikeç 2001), Lefebvre’s
city can be seen as the embodiment of a justice of capabilities, a concept pioneered by
Amartya Sen (Sen 2009): justice as the ability and freedom of each one in society to
reach the goals they set for themselves as an individual human being. The capabilities
concept underpins more recent developments in measuring success beyond purely
quantitative and economic terms, such as the UN’s Human Development Index which
shifts the focus of assessing a county’s development from economic growth to the
development of its people and their capabilities, including indicators of health and
education.
It is in such terms that this report looks at housing through a comparative
framework structured on the concepts of a) equity of outcomes and impact, b)
democracy of the process of production in terms of citizen participation,
representation, and control, c) just recognition and inclusion of different needs and
aspirations of non-dominant groups, and d) capability development as one’s ability to
fulfil their own life.

13. 13
4. Three journeys to housing for millions
Sweden: Miljonprogrammet
Context
Miljonprogrammet (MP) or the Million Homes Programme was a response to a
years-long housing shortage in the first post-war decades in major Swedish cities. It
aimed, and succeeded, at building a million new dwellings between 1965 and 1974.
Miljonprogrammet fits within a broader paradigm in the first few decades of post-war
European urban development history characterised by construction of large scale,
high-rise housing, often in the form of invariant apartment blocks in the outskirts of
major cities.
While Sweden remained neutral during the war and, in contrast to many
European countries, was not in need of reconstruction projects, a combination of
rapid urbanisation, rising prosperity levels, and the state control of rents, resulted in
a severe housing shortage for hundreds of thousands of households who lacked a
home of their own (Hall and Vidén 2005). The failure to provide housing, one of the
pillars of welfare policy in that period, was seen as huge failure for the Social
Democratic government who embarked on a very ambitious plan, adopted in
parliament, in 1965, to build 100 000 new homes each year for the coming 10 years.
Impressive as it was, given that at the time the total number of dwellings across
Sweden was 3 million (Hall and Vidén 2005), this target was achieved. Today, 26% of
Sweden’s housing stock originates in housing from the Miljonprogrammet (Lindqvist
2000).

14. 14
The outstanding growth Sweden experienced during the “record years”, as the
period of the 1960s and early 1970s has been called, financed the an exemplary
system of welfare for which the modern and spacious new buildings and
neighbourhoods of the Miljonprogrammet were the architectural and urban
expression. Housing production in this period was characterised by large-scale
industrialised and standardised construction, often prefabrication, supported by a
legislative framework that facilitated both the provision of land to local authorities
and generous loans and investment provided towards development. With almost
90,000 new apartments being built in 1964, the year just before the programme
started, the pace of construction during the record years was already very high (Hall
and Vidén 2005). Miljonprogrammet inscribed this high-paced construction activity
within a long-term view and backed it with a strong political commitment.
Land
Up until the early 19th
century “cities owned practically all land within their
boundaries and their citizens rented it” (Atmer 1987). Private land ownership
advanced during this century with cities selling off land to private investors, yet from
the end of the century municipalities had again gained control through land use
planning, building law, buying land, and other intervention in the land market. In the
decades that preceded the Miljonprogrammet municipalities were considered as the
indefinite keepers of land to be safeguarded for future growth. In Stockholm the city
had acquired 13,764 hectares of land between 1900 and 1970 by which time is was
owning land equal to three times the area within its municipal boundaries (Atmer
1987). Before the start of Miljonprogrammet land ownership by local authorities
could suffice for 10 years building, in line with state objectives requiring the
acquisition of land ten years prior to its development (Ödmann 1973).
The main mechanism through which Stockholm and Swedish municipalities
have disposed land since the beginning of the 20th
century has been by leasehold,
implying permanent land ownership and land value capture by the city. Shortly after
the start of Miljonprogrammet Government loans for municipalities were introduced
specifically in order to facilitate land acquisition and continued ownership through
leasehold-based development (Ödmann 1973).

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The Swedish housing model
Nesslein identifies 4 key objectives that characterise the Swedish housing
model between the end of the Second World War until the early 1990s (Nesslein
2003):
§ Increased housing production accompanied with an increased housing standards.
§ Equality in the distribution of housing.
§ Restriction of property-generated wealth transfers to private owners.
§ Reduction of socioeconomic and ethnic segregation in housing.
Housing demand has been structurally supported by strong economic growth
tied to an income redistribution system: Sweden at the early 70s was at the same time
one of the richest countries in the world and one of the most equal in terms of income
distribution (Nesslein 2003). Additionally, housing subsidies, including below the
market interest rates, housing allowances, tax subsidies, that were non-selective and
covered almost all housing production, greatly supported home ownership. Writing in
1973, Odman notes that “about 95% of the flats in blocks and about 90 % of those in
single family houses receive government loans” (Ödmann 1973).
With a practical state monopoly of land for development and subsidisation
mechanisms, housing supply was subject to heavy local and national government
regulation. Land allocation and loans to developers were subject to conditions
including building regulations, construction costs as well as design control by local
government. A large part of housing development is undertaken by non-profit
municipal companies, which have been favoured by the state loan financing system.
Up until 1969, rent both in the private and the public sector was linked to
initial construction costs, with adjustments being made for maintenance and
improvements. Subsequently, rent regulation transitioned towards a more market-
regulated system with benchmarks set by municipal housing companies to reflect the
‘use value’ of housing (Turner 1988).
Overview
Faced with an acute housing shortage in the beginning of the 60s a public
inquiry was set up to better understand the need and develop policy guidelines for

16. 16
housing. People wanted more and better housing. Analysing existing conditions and
identifying trends in society’s attitudes to housing, the inquiry, undertaken in 1965,
aimed to predict what housing would be like in 1975 (‘Höjd Bostadsstandard’ 1965).
Key projections in the final report were taken on board the implementation of
Miljonprogrammet, they pointed to:
§ A need for 3.2 million homes in total to cover housing need, meaning an extra 1.5
million would need to be constructed in addition to the existing
§ Larger homes due to higher incomes: average space requirements would rise to 0.5
people per room, from 2.0 per room in 1965
§ Car ownership for every home
§ A reduction of the rate of urbanization to very low levels
§ A reduction in the size of families with fewer children born per family
§ An increased demand for services and amenities due to higher disposable incomes
Features
Implementing such a large scale programme posed significant challenges,
notably financing, building methods, planning and regulations. Theses challenges
were addressed through an approach, primarily characterised by standardisation,
centralised control, and state investment. Pension funds provided most of the loans,
guaranteed by the state, that financed housing construction (Holm 1987). Half of
multi-family dwellings were constructed by non-profit municipal housing companies,
30% by tenant-owned co-operatives, and about 20% by private companies (Hall and
Vidén 2005).
Government loans were in turn provided under requirements for building
standards, including the size of new housing units, neighbourhood planning, and
building costs. The drive for rationalisation was reflected in the political discourse at
the time with the national government stating that: “the projects shall have a high
degree of uniformity. A strict limit of variants shall be maintained with regard to
measurements of building components, stairways, floor plans and configuration in
general” (Welin and Bildsten 2017). In a quest for efficiency, economy, and affordable
high-standard housing, the programme embodied rationalisation, supported equally
by an industrialisation study calling for standardisation, mass production, and pre

17. 17
fabrication of construction. Projects of more than 1000 apartments each, in repetitive
building styles, were prioritised in the early years. Referring to the record years
period overall, Hall and Vidén note that “in the period 1961–75 about 50% of the
dwellings in multi-family buildings were produced in neighbourhoods with ten or
more buildings of the same sort and with the same owner and a further 25% in blocks
with four to nine buildings” (Hall and Vidén 2005).
The majority of the buildings were built in new suburbs or in the periphery of
cities, often as entire new neighbourhoods with their own local centre for services
and transit. The development of neighbourhood guidelines governing the design of
infrastructure and services such as playgrounds, schools, shops, parks, transit and
parking, with a specific regard to high-density car-depended living, was undertaken
by teams in the University of Gothenburg and Chalmers (Lindqvist 2000). These were
adopted initially by the Stockholm municipality and then across the country (Hall and
Vidén 2005).
Impact
While the dominant impression of the programme is of high-rise housing
blocks this is incorrect. About a quarter of the housing units produced were in
apartment blocks of 5 or more stories, a third were in two- to three-storey buildings
and as many were detached houses (Rörby 1996). Nonetheless, economy, the legacy
of 20s and 30s functionalism, industrialised production, and developers demands
were all factors that contributed to a distinctive type of high-rise construction being
promoted (Söderqvist 1999).
Overall Miljonprogrammet produced about one million new dwellings with the
largest proportion of them, 66%, in blocks of flats and a significant 34% in individual
houses. These were built across Sweden; a 35% of them were constructed in the
greater urban areas of Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmo. The increase in housing
standards was significant: overcrowding was reduced from 34% to 5% between 1960
and 1975. In the same period the percentage of dwellings with no bathroom fell from
45% to 5% (Hall and Vidén 2005). The quality of materials, central heating and
equipment, environmental quality, day lighting, as well as the amount of space per
dwelling, were all greatly improved.

18. 18
The great failure of the programme was at the level of open and public spaces.
New developments were often disconnected from the traditional human-scale
streetscape of their cities. Public space layouts were usually dominated by car parks
and unintelligible way finding that prioritised car traffic rather than walking. The
focus on efficiency and economy, and the number of dwellings produced, made open
spaces, pedestrian routes, and even services and infrastructure, a lower priority if not
neglected. Even if the established guidelines stated that every development should be
within 500m of a transit station many of these station were never built. In many cases
the failure to plans for services, public space, and the human scale resulted in
segregated “concrete ghettos” that failed to provide the stimulating environment for
the aspiring middle classes.
Soon after its completion, and in some cases even earlier, the new districts
rather than providing “housing for all” concentrated the underprivileged of the city
which today account for the 85-90% of inhabitants (Ziliacus 2013). Numerous have
been the debates about what to do with Miljonprogrammet and how to deal with its
social malaise, socioeconomic and ethnic segregation. Members of parliament have
even called for some of the areas to be completely razed, including the minister for
integration who claimed that they lead to social exclusion of their residents (Ziliacus
2013). Many have been torn down.

19. 19

20. 20

21. 21

22. 22
Sri Lanka: The Million Houses Programme
Context
Post-independence housing policy in Sri Lanka was initially limited to the
provision of loans to individuals by the Housing Loan Board (est. 1949) until the
ministry of Housing and the National Housing Department were established in 1953,
and 1954. These promoted construction loans and the provision of land to housing
cooperatives (Dolapihilla 2000). The state also aimed to increase affordable housing
to low-income groups through rent controls (Wakely 2007) as well as through the
direct construction of social housing in the form of apartment blocks. Housing
programmes became a government priority following the rise to power of the United
National Party in 1977 and the establishment of the Urban Development Authority,
1977, and the National Housing and Development Authority, 1978, (Joshi and Sohail
2010).
Land policy post-independence enabled the state to exercise a significant
control of the development process. Notably, the land reform law of 1972 established
a ceiling for the private ownership of agricultural land and a land reform commission
to expropriate and redistribute it; much of it became state land whereas some was
allocated to landless individuals or those owing less than the ceiling (Herath 2006).
Moreover, the 1973 Ceiling on Property Law aimed to redistribute property and
address a severe housing shortage by linking the amount of houses an individual
could own to the size of their family and their dependant children (Herath 2006;
Sevanatha 2003). Land reforms transferred almost one million acres of land as well as
12,347 housing properties, equivalent to the 71.6% of all tenements, to public
ownership (Hamdi and Goethert 1989).
While the housing situation in the late 1970s in Sri Lanka was not very critical
in comparison to the majority of developing countries at the time (UN Habitat 1987),
it was estimated that in order to obtain satisfactory housing for all citizens by 2000,
an average of 145000 new units per year would have to be constructed and a further
103000 would need to be upgraded (Hanson and Struyk 1984). According to the same
study it was estimated that only half of the households in need of upgrading or new

23. 23
housing could afford the costs involved. Further, while the rate of urbanisation was
rather low and steady, In cities, one third of housing was classified as semi-
permanent or improvised, excluding shanties and slum areas which represented a
significant challenge, especially in the capital Colombo. A lack of proper toilet and
water facilities was a particular concern both in the formal and informal housing
sectors; the census of 1981 indicated that 19% of the urban housing stock had no
toilets (Department of Census and Statistics 1981).
The early 1980s global economic recession, a general adoption of neoliberal
policies, as well as a deteriorating domestic economy, had contributed to a reduction
of public, state, and international funding for housing and urban development, in line
with the recommendations of the IMF at the time. The lack of funds and the
persistent housing problem, particularly for low income groups, increased the
pressure for affordable solutions that could be put into practice on a large scale. This
necessity aligned with the ideological shift from a “provider” to a “support” paradigm
in housing calling for greater community autonomy, self-help, and the financial relief
of the state from the housing process (Hamdi and Goethert 1989).
The Million Houses Programme (MHP) in Sri Lanka “constituted one of the
largest efforts... to reach low-income families in the urban and rural sector with
improved infrastructure and shelter” (Ramachandran 1987). Initially planned for the
period between 1984-1993 it aimed to assist house construction and improvement
through the provision of loans to low-income households in urban and rural areas.
The programme followed the Hundred Thousand Houses Programme, 1978-1983,
which aimed at the provision of housing for low income households through direct
construction and aided self-held but was abandoned because of a lack of funds. The
MHP was an attempt, in view of changing economic conditions and the experience of
the Hundred Thousand Houses programme, to provide housing and improvement of
housing conditions for a greater number of people yet with limited state resources.
Overview
Reviewing the impact of the Hundred Thousand Houses programme, a special
task force set by the government noted that while the programme built some 115000
units, people themselves had constructed a lot more houses on their own, at a lower

24. 24
cost and a greater satisfaction with the result. The MHP was conceived to support
housing activity led by the rural and urban poor, recognising and supporting, in
essence, the processes of informal land development. The guiding framework of the
programme was underpinned by the following principles (UN Habitat 1987):
§ Primary support for low-income households in urban and rural areas
§ Minimum state intervention, limited to necessary support and information
§ Maximum decision-making by the individual user/builder
§ Decentralised planning and control delegated to local authorities’ sub-programmes
assisted by central government
§ Prominent role of the community throughout the programme
The MHP consisted of a rural and an urban housing programme. The rural
housing programme provided small loans for the construction or the rehabilitation of
houses in rural areas as well as for the construction of water and sanitation facilities.
The local governing body, Gramodaya Mandale, provides the loans, which range from
Rs 3000-7500, at a subsidised interest rate, ranging from 3 to 6%, with a repayment
period of 5-15 years. Households with an annual income of less than Rs 1000 are
eligible to apply. The loans are approved by the NHDA district office which is also
responsible for collecting repayments, directly or through a community-based
organisation.
The urban housing programme was implemented by a newly formed Urban
Housing Division oft he NHDA, that consolidated the NHDA’s Urban Division, with
experience in the direct construction of housing, and the UDA’s Slum and Shanty
Division that brought expertise and past experience from low-cost upgrading and
relocation schemes. The programme offered a maximum of Rs 15000 at a 10% rate for
4 main loan options: a) shelter upgrading, b) new house, c) utilities and d) site-and-
services. More than the financing facility, the urban housing programme included
policies that allowed low-income housing to be constructed on the basis of minimum
standards that differed from the official planning and building regulations. “Special
project areas” were designated for low-cost and high-density development for which
plans and minimum standards were developed per-project before being approved by
the UDA.

25. 25
The land on which a house constructed or improved through the loan packages
was provided as a leasehold, initially for 30 years, yet due toe “widespread
dissatisfaction” by the householders which translated into political pressure, this was
extended to 50 years and later to full freehold titles (Wakely 2016).
Features
Community participation in the housing process is singled out as the
overriding feature of the MHP for which it is often hailed as one of the most
significant manifestations of the shift in ideas and practice towards the “support”
paradigm (Hamdi and Goethert 1989). The MHP pioneered a community action
planning approach which placed emphasis on involving the people and the
community as active agents in development rather than as mere objects of
development and recipients of aid. The objective was to empower the settlement
community, assisting it where necessary with technical support, to lead development
(IIED 1994). Central to the approach where community action planning workshops
held with community leaders, representatives of the settlement’s interest groups, and
technical staff of the local authority and other organisations. Workshops allowed to
establish a collective view of the settlements socio-economic situation, identify
problems and opportunities for improvement, and draft plans for future action.
Community action planning was employed throughout the settlement upgrading
process including: high-level action planning, formulation of community-appropriate
building regulations, settlement layouts, land tenure regularisation, as well as the
creation of local participatory institutions for maintaining and furthering the
development effort through community-based organisations (IIED 1994). Consistent
with the CAP approach the programme featured:
§ Upgrading and incremental building rather than wholesale new construction or
tabula rasa reconstruction: both urban and rural programmes worked with what
existed already, putting emphasis on incremental small-scale additions and
improvements in infrastructure and housing. In cases of new construction, a small-
scale site and services model was used in vacant land within previously built inner
urban areas (Hamdi 1995).

26. 26
§ Personalised housing improvement options: for each programme different
“housing options and loans packages” were provided for various types of housing
needs. Loans could be taken for upgrading water and sanitation facilities in existing
housing, constructing a new house, upgrading existing structures, and utilities. The
loan amount, interest, and repayment period varied for each one, depending also on
whether the loan was provided under the rural or urban programme. This allowed for
households to personalise housing solutions.
§ Decentralised implementation through local and traditional structures: in rural
areas district and village councils, with support from the housing authority,
undertook a large part of the programme’s administration and decision-making
themselves, including loan management and monitoring progress. Further, work that
would have previously been done in offices, such as land regularisation and plan-
making, was being done in collaboration with residents on site. In urban areas due to
the more fragmented nature of institutional structures local community development
councils were set up.
§ Training and capacity building activities complement financing activity: from “how
to build” handbooks to training provided on construction management and book-
keeping, implementation of the programme was undertaken through a transfer of
skills and expertise to the community as well as to local government officials.
Central to the MHP were the Community Development Councils (CDC)
community-based organisations with simple rules that are either self-organised in
view of the community being eligible to participate in the programme, or organised
through the coordination of the NHDA. CDCs provided the main interface between
the local populations and external agencies. Each CDC would usually represent 50-60
families in one settlement (UN Habitat 1994). Notably, CDCs, and not commercial
contractors, were awarded Community Construction Contracts (CMC) for the
upgrading of shared infrastructure and utilities. CMCs covered labour and material
costs and provided for a 15% profit margin; in essence they enabled the community to
act as a contractor. CMC works were carried out by community members themselves,
often with help from externally hired labour, and in a minority of cases through sub-
contracting (UN Habitat 1994).

27. 27
Outcomes
MHP was hailed as a great success, by the Sri Lankan government, local and
international agencies, and scholars alike. Wakely notes that the “by-and-large, the
process worked well, particularly at the level of constructing or improving individual
dwellings; slightly less so for the development of public infrastructure and services,
through there are many examples of highly successful community contracts, through
which CDCs tendered for and won ‘community contracts’ for neighbourhood-level
public infrastructure works”. Within the first two years of implementation the
programme reached more that 79,118 families of which 43,933 had completed
housing works. The rural part of the programme, had reached over 10,000 out of
25,000 Sri Lankan villages, whereas the urban programme had covered 49 out of of 51
Urban Local Authorities (Sirivardana 1986). In rural areas the MHP had benefited
twice as many families in less than 2 years than the Hundred Thousand Houses
programme did over more then 7 years, and this at a fraction of a per-unit cost. For
the urban territory, this was “the first time that an urban low-income programme is
reaching all the urban areas in the country” (Sirivardana 1986).
In more qualitative terms the MHP recognised and revitalised local vernacular
traditions of building and the informal processes of land development, but also
created the conditions at an institutional and policy level to enable community
participation. Further the programme, through its impact on funders and
international training and implementation partners, has in turned influenced low-
income housing improvement practices internationally (Hamdi and Goethert 1989).
Still, even though this was not part of its stated intentions, MHP did not significantly
change the social structure and form of the city as a whole, with physical and social
divisions remaining visible (Wakely 2016).

28. 28

29. 29

30. 30

31. 31
Greece: Antiparochi
Context
At the end of the Greek Civil War, 1946-1949, which followed the end of the
Second World War, Greek cities were faced with the difficult task of reconstruction
combined with the management of rapidly increasing populations. Almost 30% of the
housing stock had been destroyed during the war, a large part of what remained was
damaged, while the quality of existing housing was particularly low (Ellis 1965;
Οικονόµου and Μουντάκη 1978). At the same time, the transition from an
agricultural to an industrialised economy based around the major urban centres was
accompanied by accelerated internal flows of migration from the countryside to the
cities. It is estimated that in a period of two years, 1947-1948, around 700.000 people,
10% of the total population, migrated from the countryside to the cities
(Αντωνοπούλου 1988), with the majority of internal migration flowing into Athens,
where population more than doubled in thirty years, and Thessaloniki.
Responding to this double challenge housing production during the post-war
period is particularly high especially in and around the capital, which is expanding
rapidly. This transformation characterised by Guy Burgel as the “Athenian Miracle in
the 20th
Century” is led by the private sector (Burgel 2002); the state is effectively
absent both in terms of a pro-active housing policy and much more in terms of direct
construction. Indicatively, while more than 3 million new housing units were built,
the state accounted for the construction of a mere 50.000 of those (Κοτζαµάνης and
Μαλούτας 1985). However, the entirety of institutional and state actions that affect
housing production, directly or indirectly, constitute an in-practice housing policy, or
better a de facto housing model even if defined by the absence of the state housing
policy (Εµµανουήλ 2006).
From land ownership to land development
Maloutas (Maloutas 2008) sums up practices and regulations in the planning
system that facilitate the conversion of property in the form of land into urban land
and in turn into housing as:

32. 32
§ An absence of land use planning.
§ The social diffusion and ease of access to land ownership.
§ Perpetual subdivision of agricultural land and its conversion into urban land
through illegal construction.
§ The institutional tolerance and broad social base of illegal construction on
officially undevelopable plots.
§ The lack of control and taxation on individual house building.
‘Illegal’ construction in undevelopable land, land beyond the limits of formally
planned territory, has benefitted from both the tolerance of administrative
authorities and the gaps in planning legislation while at the same time benefiting a
broad spectrum of society that incorporates multiple actors involved in the
construction industry (Μαντουβάλου 1996). A permissive state enabled in this way
the private sector to respond to the post-war housing needs of Greek cities.
Further, while absent in housing, in terms of land accessibility and
affordability state policy has been argued to be consistent and systematic (Οικονόµου
1987). Unlike the credit-based model facilitating home ownership in the majority of
the developed countries at the time, state policy in Greece facilitates the provision of
urban land for housing. This happens through a) the gradual expansion of urban
plans, formalising previously illegally developed land and b) the steady increase of
FAR construction coefficients in cities. In effect, while the state retreats from direct
housing policy and construction it simultaneously increases the supply of urban,
constructible, land both horizontally and vertically.
The relatively transversal distribution of land across social strata as well as the
small size of land property has been a defining historical feature of urban and rural
land in Greece highlighted in the analysis of several scholars (Αντωνοπούλου 1988;
Οικονόµου 1987). Consequent territorial expansion of the new independent Greek
state from 1821 onwards, followed by farmers uprisings, extensive agrarian reform,
land nationalisation and redistribution are some of the key factors that over the
course of the 19th
and early 20th
century contributed to this Greek particularity. As
urban centres expanded post-war, incorporating agricultural and semi-urban land
around them, this land distribution pattern passes from the rural to the urban sector.
In fact, in this latest rural to urban land transition there is further subdivision of land

33. 33
plots resulting in a mosaic of urban “nano-plots” (Αντωνοπούλου 1988). In contrast
to industrialised countries during that period, urban development in Greece rather
than being driven by large properties through the concentration of construction
capital, was dominated by land fragmentation and small properties interrelated with
the primary modes of construction (Μαντουβάλου 1996).
Effectively, land in the post-war period is being developed, legally or illegally,
through 3 main modes of production a) self-construction, where land owners decide,
manage, finance, and also construct the building through their and their family’s
help, in their own property; b) construction on demand, where land owners manage
and finance building by a construction company; and c) Antiparochi, where
construction is being developed through a partnership between land-owner and
constructor with the land-owner contributing the land and the constructor
contributing the labour and material costs, recuperated for both in the form of shares
of ownership for own uses and/or for sale at a profit.
Construction companies in their scale and structure mirror in a way the
fragmentation of land and the small properties. There exists a large number of small
scale, family scale even, of companies active in housing construction whereas the few
large scale construction companies that exist are mostly active in public
infrastructure works and work outside Greece. In contrast to most developed
countries at the time, the market structure and capital formation processes in the
construction sector and land development were not incentivising the formation of
large construction companies (Μαντουβάλου 1996; Αντωνοπούλου 1988).
Construction is no exception to the structure of the Greek economy and society being
dominated by small-scale enterprises up until the reforms post-EU membership.
Features
Antiparochi is essentially a law that institutionalises an in-kind exchange of a
plot of land with a share of ownership, a number of apartments, in the apartment
building to be constructed on this plot of land; the remaining apartments owned by
the constructor subsequently sold to pay for labour and material costs and to make a
profit. This Stepping on the “law of horizontal property” adopted in 1929, allowing
for different levels of a building in a single plot to be owned by different owners, this

34. 34
system of land-VS-apartments for the landowner and labour and materials -VS-
apartments for the constructor, soon dominated land development in Greece.
Inseparable to the Antiparochi as a legal framework of housing production is
the spatial typology of the Polykatoikia; the building type that dominates post-war
expansion and renewal of Greek cities. By many seen as the local vernacular
expression of modernism in the Greek city combining advanced construction
techniques with low-skilled labour, Polykatoikia is a generic typology for concrete
structure apartment buildings that flexibly adapt themselves to business and retail
units at street level, mix residence with offices above; in the absence of stylistic
guidelines or land use planning they make the most efficient use of building
regulations (Vittorio, Giudici, and Issaias 2012). Built without architects, through the
collaboration of self-taught constructors and landowners, the Polykatoikias of
Antiparochi flooded the Attica basin in the post-war years.
Antiparochi made sense because of the ability of the Polykatoikia to effectively
create and vertically expand urban land, and not just for housing, as a direct result of
increases of FAR and land covered by urban plans by successive governments—the
dictatorship notably in a move to appeal to society increased FAR by 20%. Further,
Antiparochi has at the same time been actively supported by tax incentives, resulting
in a 20% reduction of building cost (Γκοµούζα 2015), and, in a time of no bank or state
credit supply for housing, assumes the functions of credit and investment for
constructors and future home owners (Καλτσίκας 1991).
Impact
Greek cities are defined by the Polykatoikias, the great majority of which have
been produced through the Antiparochi model. Indicatively 35,000 of them were built
in between 1960 and 1980 in Athens only, where previously no more than 1000
existed (Γκοµούζα 2015). Densities in urban centres increased dramatically with little
consideration for infrastructure, green or public spaces. Yet, at the same time it
literally flooded cities with affordable good-quality homes lowering the threshold for
access to housing for a very broad spectrum of society. Greece at the end of the 1970s
had one of the highest construction rates per resident amongst developed economies

35. 35
as well as the highest percentage of owner-occupation in Europe, 71%
(Αντωνοπούλου 1988).
The flexible plan configuration enabled by a reinforced concrete structure
allowed for a great variety of programmes and uses including small businesses, offices
for lawyers, doctors, dentists, and hairdressers, all of which co-habited, and still do,
the multi-storey buildings with residents. In quite a few of the Polykatoikias, notably
on more central streets, the ground floor with arcades and porticos provided space for
shops, cafes, and restaurants, creating a densely animated mix of street life. These
characteristics have been remarked for their contribution in creating socially diverse,
vibrant, and safe neighbourhoods (Dragonas 2014). In particular, Maloutas highlights
that the Polykatoikia has resulted in a vertical socio-economic differentiation, socio-
economic groups distributed on different floors in the same building, in turn
resolving spatial segregation (Maloutas 2007).

36. 36

37. 37

38. 38

39. 39
5. Looking for justice
Notwithstanding the different contexts, aspirations, and points of departure,
that define each of the cases presented in the previous chapters, they each trace a
journey from land to housing, that enabled millions of people to access housing. The
diagrams that follow aim to model this journey, breaking it down into an equal
number of steps and distinguishing in each one parallel or complementing agencies
of the key stakeholders involved. These diagrams are unavoidably reductive; the
intention is not to for each to describe the complexity of each journey in itself but for
all three of them together to offer a comparative reading of the three different
processes, each understood in relation to the other two. Steps in these 3 journeys
intend to outline the principal activities undertaken by key stakeholders in a
sequence of smaller transformations within the land to housing process. For all cases
these are:
§ STEP 1: From Land, before anyone other then the state claims it, to Owned and
Occupied Land, legally or illegally, by transfer, occupation or construction
§ STEP 2: From Owned and Occupied Land to Developable Land, land that through
formal recognition or regulation has been given a status that allows for legal
construction to take place
§ STEP 3: From Developable Land to Housing as the construction produced
§ STEP 4: From Housing to A Home, either as an owner-occupancy, a tenancy, or a
marketable asset

41. 41

42. 42

43. 43
The ways in which social justice may be achieved are not just qualitatively
different but notably asynchronous: the levers to achieve justice present themselves
in different times, steps, within each journey. This is significant, for often housing is
looked as a product decoupled from the context and primary enabling or constraining
conditions, resulting in a significant loss of insight and misinterpretation of evidence.
Miljonprogrammet aims to provide housing for all by directly producing affordable
good quality homes, as tenancies and home-ownerships. Seen in its context and
through such a land-to-housing journey, it does so both by facilitating their
production by state finance and excluding speculation from development through
municipal land-banking and non-profit municipal housing developers. A progressive
taxation system provides the financing for one million new homes to cover the needs
of everyone. However considering the failure in terms of increased social segregation
and even the ghettoization of many of these new neighbourhoods, the impact of the
programme in the form of the city seems problematic. It can be argued that despite
its intentions to create new modern housing for all, the programme effectively
increases injustice by producing housing stock that because of its poor services and
consideration for community life becomes the second-rate shelter for the
unprivileged and socioeconomically disadvantaged urban populations. This is far
from an equitable distribution of impact: existing residential parts of the city become
more valuable because following Miljonprogrammet something less valuable has been
produced. In turn this points to the significance of factors beyond the quality of
individual dwellings and buildings in determining standard of living: the middles
classes have not preferred Miljonprogrammet not because of its poor housing quality,
but because of the poor urban quality that it created.
In the case of Antiparochi-Polykatoikia if one looks at the last steps of the
housing production process, it appears as a market driven model that benefits the
ones have the land and the finance to produce housing. Yet, this ignores the earlier
steps of land redistribution as well as the agency of disadvantaged populations
shaping the processes of land regularisation. Distributive justice is achieved earlier in
the process with sequential land reforms and land allocations directly to landless
individuals, as well as the legalisation of previously occupied land and illegal
construction. Entire districts in the then suburbs of Athens built illegally in occupied

44. 44
land, by poor migrants and refugees are formally recognised and regularised, for later
on to be given development rights which in turn are converted into housing and
assets for their owners and partner constructors. As has been noted even in the case
of non-landowners who have accessed housing through buying or renting into the
excess housing supply produced, the threshold to access housing has been lowered
for a broad spectrum of society. One can further argue that the benefits of
Antiparochi have not been limited to home owners, tenants, and landowners, but
extensively spread across the economy through the synergy of a big number of small-
scale constructors into the process, who were at the same time involved in trading
building supplies an materials. In terms of its impact to the city as a whole,
Antiparochi is at the same time credited for creating a diffuse urbanity due to the
adaptability and flexibility of the Polykatoikia typology and the primary target for the
deteriorating quality of life in the central city due to the maximisation of built density
in the absence of a planning framework for open spaces and urban infrastructure. Yet,
one has to consider for who the central city is before and after: this transformation
can be seen as a large land-less housing-poor population claiming their share of the
city, accompanied by a net increase of their quality of life, while at the same time a
smaller established urban population saw their own standard of living falling, even
though still being in the position to capitalise from this transformation and move
into wealthier and greener suburbs.
Redistribution of land in parallel to informal land development and occupation
characterise the first step in the Sri Lankan context providing a significant enabler to
the Million Houses Programme. The specific focus of the programme to the urban and
rural poor further consolidates a socially just development approach. Importantly,
residents are reported to be more satisfied with the resulting developments compared
to the hundred thousands programme embarked on in the previous years. The
landless and the poor are allocated land, yet housing is largely funded by their own
and their communities’ labour and as subject to custom regulations respecting local
vernacular traditions, limits further development that could have allowed the
production of a housing surplus which could in turn provide more housing units to be
delivered and added value to be transferred back to individual landowners. The
programme did not achieve its ambitious million dwellings target. The strength of the

45. 45
approach lies mostly in the just recognition of the informal processes of housing
production and the empowerment of communities, previously disenfranchised, to
control land development and housing construction. Indeed the resulting built
environments contain many of the qualities of space that are lacking both in the
Antiparochi and the Miljonprogrammet model: human scale neighbourhoods that
support community life and rather than individualised living enhance social
interaction, self-help, and community resilience. In terms of its impact on the city as
a whole, as previously noted, the programme does not transform the existing urban
structure: while there is a significant increase in the quality of life, housing
standards, and tenure security, areas of the programme remain relatively poor and
under-serviced. An acknowledged failure to sustain community development
structures (the CDC have to a large extent withered following the end of the
programme) also limits the effectiveness of the arguably significant community
empowerment effort to expand social justice for the urban poor in the long term.
It is worth reflecting on the different ways through which the agency of the
individual and the resourcefulness of people and communities are recognised in
housing production in these three different contexts, especially considering the
prevalence of participatory urbanism approaches and discourses today both in the
Global North and the Global South. In Miljonprogrammet it is the state and the
municipality who shape, finance, regulate, and guide the entire process. Individual
agency can only be exercised mediated through representation in the local and
national state structures. Individual needs and aspirations are incorporated through
surveys and consultation that informs expert analysis in order to generate universal
guidance that is later adopted nationally. The individual mainly exercises their
agency as a tenant or as a property buyer. The Million Houses Programme recognises
the expertise of communities and individuals, significantly it recognises the urban
and rural poor, to know best how to construct their own housing as well as how to
manage their land and self-built construction project. Needs and aspirations are self-
defined yet, as also these are to a large part self-fulfilled with limited available
resources, they can be argued to be themselves self-restricted. Antiparochi and the
context within which it is interweaved, empower individual agency throughout the
housing production process. The individual is an landowner and land developer,

46. 46
finances construction in-kind, creates partnerships with developers, defines their
needs and aspiration, negotiates their profit-making requirements in the form of
surplus housing stock, manages and trades land and the added value of their
construction project. While this agency may be circumstantial, it is the most
empowering and transformative amongst the three cases.
Recognising the agency of the previously unprivileged to better their own
lives, through building their own house in their own land, in the case of Sri Lanka,
and more so from benefitting from the surplus value of their labour and in-kind land
investment, in the case of Greece, is a pre-requisite of a consequent dimension of
justice as capability. Through such a lens, the three cases can be seen to operate at 3
levels: provision of housing, provision of quality of life in terms of urban
environment, and provision of marketable assets to pursue further life goals, in terms
of surplus housing value traded. While all programmes have provided housing, the
Million Houses programme can be argued to have strengthened the resourcefulness of
communities to pursue their own goals by retaining existing social relationship and
community ties in place while supporting them with key infrastructure and
upgrading. A different increase in capabilities takes place in the Greek case where
through a broad-reach small-scale capitalism model excess housing stock provides
the means to further life-improvement for the previously landless and houseless
gradually becoming landowners, house-owners, and house-traders.
Miljonprogrammet itself functions much less as social justice project in this respect;
one has to remember though that it operates within a welfare state that targets social
injustices and inequality through policies much broader than housing.
Moreover the spatial dimensions of the three cases reveal a further significant
difference in terms of expanding capabilities. Antiparochi-Polykatoikia is spatially
diffused throughout the city with a primary focus on the centres of cities where FARs
are increased. Miljonprogrammet operates on the outskirts of cities, while the
Millions Houses programme targets existing settlements without altering the existing
urban structure. New homeowners and tenants of the urban Polykatoikias in Greek
cities enjoy the amenities, services, and social integration that the central city is
better equipped to offer. The vertical social differentiation, resulting in socially mixed
urban neighbourhoods, enabled through the Antiparochi-Polykatoikia model is in

47. 47
sharp contrast with the horizontal social segregation of the Miljonprogrammet
districts. In between the two, The Million Houses Programme while strengthening
internal community structures and enhancing community life with an internal
spatiality of communal open space lack the diffuse spatiality of the Greek case.
Beyond an increase in capabilities, Antiparochi’s spatial diffusion constitutes a
redistribution of access to and ownership of the central city.
This discussion would not be complete without a reflection on how democratic
the processes and structures involved in housing production in the 3 cases have been;
democratic in terms of participation and representation of people in the decisions
that affect their lives. Decision-making in Miljonprogrammet, following a rational
scientific planning approach, is on the basis of mediated representation and
consultation: decisions are made by politicians at local and national level, who
represent the people, and professional experts, who consult the people. People do not
directly decide where or how housing is going to be, they are offered choices once the
housing project has been completed that are intended to respond to their needs
which have been given political backing. Direct citizen agency is minimal. The Million
Houses Programme on the other hand is in this respect a landmark break with
precedent. Involving people and communities as peers in the process of land
regulation as well as in the actual building process as their own architects but also as
public works constructors has not only been an empowering process but also resulted
in a built environment that better satisfied its residents’ needs. Further the positive
impact of community action planning experience of MHP in shaping later responses
to housing and slum upgrading in the South has been widely commented. As such, it
can be argued that in terms of legacy MHP has equally expanded the space for more
participatory community-led processes beyond itself. As for Antiparochi, it provided
in effect a rulebook for individual agency to take control of the housing process.
While this is true for private space and individual dwellings, participation or
representation of the individual or of the community in shaping common open
spaces, beyond one’s private dwelling, is non-existent. The shape of the dense cities
of Antiparochi is resulting from the individualist competition for optimising one’s
own space excluding any participatory or even consultative process with regards to
community space. As free as one has been to shape their own home as powerless

48. 48
they’ve been to shape their neighbourhood space in any way other than land-owner
VS land-owner competition for private space maximisation.

49. 49
6. Conclusion and recommendations
Housing is much more than a house. In all cases, while land is the fundamental
input and point of departure, the processes and stakeholders involved in its
transformation into housing take different pathways that impact as much on
individuals as on the structure of cities themselves. Reflecting on the processes of
citizen participation, representation, and control in the three cases these range from
the low individual agency and high state control of the Swedish case, to the relatively
more equal partnership between state and community in Sri Lanka, to the low state
control and high individual agency of the Greek case. Miljonprogrammet highlights
an unmatched role of the state in how profit and speculation can be excluded from
the housing process without compromises in technical quality. The MHP community
planning model has successfully enabled the community to successfully lead the
housing effort maintaining and enhancing social infrastructure and vernacular local
practice. In the context of Antiparochi-Polykatoikia a tolerant state succeeds, by
retreating itself to the high-level ‘rules of the game’, in empowering the agency of a
broad spectrum of society to shape their city and transform their life and society. In
the context of Greece and Sri Lanka the agency of the individual, and mostly the
underprivileged individual, over the earlier steps of informal and spontaneous land
occupation and development has subsequently enabled just outcomes. Identifying
and justly recognising citizen agency at the right scale of intervention appears ever
more crucial in the light of the participatory eagerness in many cities today: over what
is agency and citizen control exercised. The resources, processes, spaces, over which
we are to have control are fundamental to the impact of our agency through a
decision making process: the method through which we make our decisions acquires
meaning in the presence of those things we can decide on
Early stage land redistribution to the urban poor and landless or informal
settlers in the Sri Lankan and the Greek cases represents a mechanism of distributive
justice towards housing that is absent from the Swedish context. The subsequent
‘creation’ of urban developable land by increasing FARs in Greece is another means of

50. 50
redistribution that further conditions the production of housing. Ultimately, the
structural difference is about what is being redistributed to the individual and its
subsequent impact: land turned into developable land in the case of Greece and Sri-
Lanka, housing units in Sweden. Arguably, within these contexts, it is developable
land that has had a much more profound impact in the livelihoods of individuals than
a dwelling, especially considering that it further enables the redistribution of access
to the central city, in the Greek case. Providing, redistributing, the enablers of
housing, as land, developable land and land regulation that acknowledges informality,
appears in this sense as a structural component of a just housing policy. Further, the
transformative overall change experienced by the city of Antiparochi-Polykatoikia
highlights the effectiveness of a universal rulebook that adapts to locally defined
standards to radically alter the form of the city and its social structure: changing the
rules for all to better the conditions for most.
In terms of wider impact, Miljoprogrammet is a reminder of how planning
without the neighbourhood scale and excluding individual and community agency in
the housing process can limit quality of life and increase spatial inequalities within
the city, even if increasing accessibility and affordability. In the case of MHP even if
structural urban inequality persisted the programme was a resounding success in
raising both individual as well a community living standards within the programme
areas, working within and empowering existing social structures and their role in
self-fulfilling needs and aspirations. The legacy of the programme has been
fundamental in shifting the paradigm of housing for the urban poor beyond Sri Lanka,
making the case for in-situ community-led development and mainstreaming it
through the programme’s international partners and NGOs. The cities of Antiparochi-
Polykatoikia experience a far greater change: an integration of disadvantaged groups
into a socioeconomically mixed central city, as well as a broadly distributed
monetisation of land and labour investment for small landowners and constructors
which in turn feeds in the wider economy and society. Considering this later point
and in the light of present discourse on the financialisation of housing it appears
important to consider who is housing as an asset for; the route towards housing as an
adequate standard of living for all may be travelled not only by excluding profit from
housing production but equally by a targeted distribution of housing-generated profit

51. 51
to low income and unprivileged groups recognising them as land developers and
entrepreneurs.
What appears crucial towards any just housing policy is an acute
understanding of place, the contextual economic and social processes that shape
places and people including the spatial ones. The agency of space at different scales
from the building to the city, in all of the 3 cases could provide a fascinating analysis
that may reveal some levers for change that hide within high-level policy and process
in the way a building touches the ground and meets the street. Last, but not least, the
roads that lead to housing are many, this report aimed to understand 3 of them, but
for each one there are millions of personal journeys too, it is these that can further
enlighten this research.

52. 52
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