The rise of housing in international development: The effects of economic discourse

Since 1945, a growing number of housing experts and development agencies have come to understand that housing investments have a significant impact on economic development. The shift in opinion has been slow and fairly steady, occurring with greatest rapidity in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It was not prompted by an accumulation of new evidence but by shifts in prevailing economic discourse. New theorisations of human capital made it possible to recognise the full social and economic consequences of housing. New theories of flexible production, including the use of subcontracting, led to a revaluation of the house building industry, a key vehicle of housing policy. The higher policy profile of housing still rests on a weak empirical foundation and is vulnerable to shifts in intellectual fashion.