The State and Self-help Housing in Urban Finland, 1920 to 1950

Bibliographic Data

ID11485349
AuthorsHannu Ruonavaara (0000-0002-9942-6858, corresponding author)
Year1999
Volume14
Issue3
Pages329-339
Publication date1999-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHousing Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0267-3037 • E-ISSN: 1466-1810
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/02673039982821
OpenAlexW1986993389
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited5

This paper examines self-help housing and state housing policies in urban Finland from 1920 to 1950. In Finland self-help housing consisted primarily of self-building of one- and two-family houses. It is often assumed that self-building used to be the typical urban form of housing production. It was certainly the form that housing reformers preferred. However, most urban housing production was private speculative production. Self-building became relatively important only when other production was depressed. The state supported self-building by providing subsidised housing finance. Of the three successive housing finance systems examined, only the last concerned only self-building. The loan policies also included an attempt to control the quality and design of self-built housing. The policies were, however, so limited that they did not have a large impact on urban housing in normal times. In Finland, as in many other countries, the government's attitude towards self-building can be characterised as guarded support

Business · Control (management · Economic growth · Economics · Government (linguistics · Loan · Production (economics · Public housing · Quality (philosophy · State (computer science · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Urban and Rural Development Challenges · Urbanization and City Planning · Finance

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