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On affordable housing
I’ve written about the relationship between transportation and housing in many of my previous posts. Here is an article defining affordable housing from the US context:
Axel-Lute, M. (January 23, 2025) “What is ‘affordable housing’?” Shelterforce, https://shelterforce.org/2025/01/23/what-is-affordable-housing/ [Last accessed: 2/4/2025]
To quote from the article:
“With no other qualifications, “affordable housing” in the United States typically refers to housing whose cost is affordable to households that make somewhere between 40 and 80 percent of the area median income.
Below 80 percent of AMI is how the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development officially defines “low income”—but be careful about making assumptions. Area median incomes are calculated at the metropolitan level, so for many areas they can be quite high. In those cases, “affordable housing” might be targeted to people who wouldn’t have considered themselves low income.
On the other hand, in some less affluent neighborhoods, official “affordable housing” might be too expensive for most of the people who already live there. And in metropolitan areas with lower housing costs overall, official “affordable housing” might not be much cheaper than market rate!”
How do we define affordable housing in the Philippines? Is our definition of “low income” similar to how they define it in the US or elsewhere? Or are our definitions flawed and therefore affect how we provide (or not) housing to those who need them the most?
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Planning for True Transportation Affordability: Beyond Common Misconceptions
How much do we spend on transportation as part of our budgets? Is it 5% of your monthly budget? Is it 10%? Or is it eating up a substantial part of what you’re earning?
Source: Planning for True Transportation Affordability: Beyond Common Misconceptions
To quote from the article:
“This research indicates that many common policies favor expensive transportation and housing over lower-cost alternatives, which drives the cost of living beyond what is affordable, leaving too little money to purchase other necessities. The result is immiseration: growing stress, unhappiness, and discontent.
The solution is simple: planning should favor affordable over expensive modes and compact development over sprawl. This is not to suggest that automobile travel is bad and should be eliminated. Many people are justifiably proud of being able to afford a nice car, and automobiles are the most efficient option for some trips. However, automobile travel requires far more resources and is far more expensive than other modes, typically by an order of magnitude, so true affordability requires an efficient, multimodal transportation system that allows travelers to choose the options that truly reflect their needs and preferences.
Affordability requires a new economic paradigm; rather than trying to increase incomes or subsidies we need to increase affordability and efficiency so households can satisfy their basic needs consuming fewer resources and spending less money. Our planning should be guided by a new goal: how can we help families be poor but happy.”
I share this article because it provides a more complete narrative and assessment than those just focusing on transport. Home choice locations and affordable housing are part of the equation. Looking at transport alone can be myopic and leads us to think it is the only problem to solve.
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Article share: on making more affordable neighborhoods
I’ve been commenting about how transportation cannot be isolated and the need to relate it to other factors such as housing or home location choice. The latter though is also affected by other factors as well that affect the affordability of homes near the city centers or CBDs where workplaces and schools are located. The result of course is sprawl or the encouragement of sprawl. Private companies take advantage of this or contribute to this ‘encouragement’ by developing land farther away from the center. Thus, for Metro Manila’s case, many people reside in the peripheral provinces of Bulacan, Rizal, Laguna and Cavite. There are even those who choose to reside in Pampanga, Bataan and Batangas.
Kayatekin, C.S. and Sanmiguel, L.U. (April 16, 2024) ” ‘Urban form’ and the housing crisis: can streets and buildings make a neighborhood more affordable?” The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/urban-form-and-the-housing-crisis-can-streets-and-buildings-make-a-neighbourhood-more-affordable-224108 [Last accessed: 4/23/2024]
Quoting from the article:
“Our main finding was that the bottom-up districts we looked at had, overall, more small-scale apartments. The reason is simple: they had more small-scale buildings, built on small-scale plots. Once divided into apartments, this produces small apartments – homes in the bottom-up areas were 10% to 23.1% smaller than their top-down counterparts. This also made their real estate markets for small homes more competitive, and therefore more affordable.
However, our study showed there is nothing inherently magical about bottom-up areas. Their more intricate housing stock has little to do with the layout of streets and blocks, and a lot to do with how that land is built upon.
Plot size appears to be the deciding factor: the districts with greater numbers of small buildings built on small plots supported a denser and more affordable housing stock, regardless of whether they were top-down or bottom-up.
Older bottom-up areas seem to naturally lend themselves to having more small-scale plots. This is likely due to the incremental development of these areas, and the complex land ownership patterns that developed as a result. However, there is no reason why a top-down area cannot be designed to replicate these characteristics.”
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Another look at home location choices
I recently shared an article showing the results of a survey conducted in the US. That survey appears to show that Americans prefer sprawl. But that may be due to many factors including political leanings that are actually mentioned in the article. I share another article that appears to be a reaction to the first one.
Lewyn, M. (August 14, 2023) “Do Americans Really Prefer Sprawl?” Planetizen, https://www.planetizen.com/blogs/125112-do-americans-really-prefer-sprawl?utm_source=newswire&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=news-08142023&mc_cid=cd3b2e2ba5&mc_eid=9ccfe464b1 [Last accessed: 8/16/2023]
To quote from the article:
“Why do these surveys yield such drastically different results? The Pew survey notes that 3/4 of rural respondents favor the less walkable alternative; thus, that survey was apparently designed to include a representative sample of Americans, including rural Americans who typically do live in very spread-out environments. It seems to me quite natural that rural Americans would prefer rural lifestyles.
But once rural respondents are excluded, the balance between sprawl and walkable communities in the Pew survey becomes almost a toss-up. 57 percent of urban respondents refer houses with smaller yards and more walkability, and an almost-equal percentage of suburban respondents prefer the opposite.”
Again, I wonder what would be the outcomes if a similar survey were done in the Philippines. Will it reveal preferences for single detached homes rather than condos? Who will prefer the latter or the former? What could be the factors affecting home location choices in the Philippines? Cost is definitely a major factor. Commuting times perhaps and even commuting costs? But how do people weigh these factors? And what other influences are there to the decisions to purchase homes?
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On home location preferences
There’s an interesting article on the preference of Americans for big houses even if these
(August 2, 2023) “Majority of Americans prefer a community with big houses, even if local amenities are far away,” Pew Research Center, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/02/majority-of-americans-prefer-a-community-with-big-houses-even-if-local-amenities-are-farther-away/ [Last accessed: 8/12/2023]
Quoting from the article:
“A majority of Americans (57%) say they would prefer to live in a community where “houses are larger and farther apart, but schools, stores and restaurants are several miles away,” according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted March 27-April 2, 2023. About four-in-ten (42%) would prefer a community where “houses are smaller and closer to each other, but schools, stores and restaurants are within walking distance.”
As general as that statement appears to be, as they say, “the devil is in the details.” The article goes to qualify the statistics according to partisanship, age, education, race and ethnicity, ideology, community type, and community type & partisanship. The resulting stats are quite revealing and helps one understand the survey results.
I wonder what would be the result of a similar survey if one were conduced in the Philippines. There is no partisanship factor here that is similar to the characteristics of Republicans and Democrats in the US. What will it reveal about our preferences? Do Filipinos prefer to have their own houses even if these are located far from workplaces and schools? Or do Filipinos prefer living closer to their workplaces and schools even if it means living in smaller homes? Certainly affordability, which was not mentioned in the article, is a major factor considering the cost of homes in cities compared to prices in the suburbs.
There is a link in the article for the methodology and questions used in the study. That means it would be possible to replicate or adapt these for the Philippine setting.
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Push and Pull: The Link Between Walkability and Affordability
Here is a quick share of an article about the link between walkability and affordable housing.
To quote:
“While early pandemic pundits predicted the ‘death’ of urban areas, recent trends show that people—perhaps more than ever—value the benefits of compact development and easily accessible amenities and services. But “Demand drives up costs and can reduce low- and moderate-income households’ opportunity to live in highly walkable areas,” the report warns.”
Source: Push and Pull: The Link Between Walkability and Affordability
Some people seem to be baffled why people choose to purchase homes and reside in the suburbs or away from the city centers. It is actually simpler than what many tend to overthink and attribute purely to the condition of our transportation system. It takes two (or more apparently) to tango and housing affordability is critical for the Philippines’ case.
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On transit oriented development issues
I share this interesting article about some issues encountered in the US that affects transit operations and what planners term as transit-oriented development (TOD). While TOD remains a good concept and has been implemented successfully elsewhere (e.g., Japan, Korea, Singapore, European countries, etc.), the experience in the US may be quite different and even contrary. This underlines the importance of proper context when reading these articles that are likely written for an American audience (its published in a major US newspaper).
Sperance, C. (September 14, 2022) “Could it be the end of the line for transit-based development,” The Boston Globe, https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/09/14/real-estate/could-it-be-end-line-transit-based-development/ [Last accessed: 9/24/2022]
The article describes how TOD came to be in the US:
“Even on a good day, when trains don’t derail or catch on fire, people move away anyway, looking for more space and the luxury of having their own car. But not everyone has the luxury to work from their living room in the burbs. The life sciences building boom in the area requires in-person work.
“We have a very strong economic engine that settled into places where people have to go to work, such as our academic institutions, our hospitals, and our labs,” Dimino said.
That’s a catalyst for transit-oriented development…”
The above quote looks to be very similar to what we have and are experiencing in many Philippine cities as well. I have mentioned and wrote about how housing affordability affects location choices in the Philippines. These choices of where to live ultimately affects transport mode choice and puts pressure on government to provide public transportation to connect suburbs to CBDs (i.e., residential areas to workplaces and even schools). We seem to be following the American model here and it does not help that the prices of residential units in the CBDs (and closer to workplaces) are not affordable to most people. The latter end up purchasing houses away from Metro Manila and in the adjacent provinces or Bulacan, Rizal, Laguna and Cavite. But it takes two to tango, as they say, and mass transit systems (their availability) also contributes to decisions of where to live. I conclude this post with another quote from the Boston Globe article:
“Transit will need to be an anchor and cornerstone of our future regarding equity, the economy, and climate and, therefore, will still be something that will have a relationship to housing decisions.”
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On housing and transportation
I’ve written about how we should not be trying to isolate transportation as if it is singly at fault for the transport and traffic mess many of us are in at present. There are many factors affecting travel behavior including mode choice. Travel distances, travel times and mode choices are not a consequence of transportation system (including infrastructure) alone. Land development and pricing especially those pertaining to housing are critical in how people decide where to live. These are intertwined with transportation and can be quite complex without the proper data or information to help us understand the relationship. That understanding, we are to assume, should lead us to the formulation of policies intended to correct unwanted trends and perhaps encourage more compact developments that are closer to desirable concepts such as the 15-minute city.
Here is an interesting article to enrich the discussion on this topic:
Dion, R. (October 28, 2021) “Coupling Housing and Mobility: A Radical Rethink for Freeways,” Planetizen.com, https://www.planetizen.com/features/115126-coupling-housing-and-mobility-radical-rethink-freeways?utm_source=newswire&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=news-11012021&mc_cid=85ec2b565f&mc_eid=9ccfe464b1%5BLast accessed: 11/3/2021]
The first thing that came to my mind are residents of northern and southern Metro Manila and the surrounding provinces. Many chose to buy houses there and beyond (i.e., Bulacan, Laguna and Cavite) and yet work or study in Metro Manila CBDs like Makati, Ortigas and BGC. And they do use the tollways (e.g., NLEX, SLEX, CaviTEX, Skyway) to get to their workplaces and schools.
This is also a relevant and timely topic in the Philippines as many cities are already headed for sprawls that will inevitably put more pressure on transportation infrastructure development that usually leans towards car-oriented projects (e.g., road widening, new roads, flyovers, etc.) rather than people-oriented ones (e.g., modern public transportation systems, bikeways, pedestrian infrastructure). Note that only Tokyo has developed an extensive enough railway system to cover the sprawl that is the Tokyo Metropolitan Area, which if interpreted loosely also includes Yokohama, Kawasaki and Chiba in the sprawl. No, we cannot build as fast to have as dense a railway network as Tokyo’s or other cities with similar rail systems. And so we have to figure out another way to address this problem.
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Lessons on housing we need to talk about
There’s this recent article on housing that presents and discusses lessons from Singapore housing that
Fischer, R. (February 2, 2021) “Singapore Housing Lessons for the Biden Administration,” Planetizen, https://www.planetizen.com/node/112077?utm_source=newswire&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=news-02082021&mc_cid=4fac9821d0&mc_eid=9ccfe464b1 [Last accessed: 2/15/2021]
I’m not an expert on housing but I’ve experienced living in Singapore. Here’s a photo of the wife as she walked ahead of me on our way to the MRT station near our place back in 2012. One of the factors we considered when we chose this place for our residence was its proximity to the orange line station that meant only one ride (no transfers) between our home station and the station closest to the wife’s office. We could also take the train to the nearest mall if we didn’t feel like walking 15 minutes.
To quote from the article:
“…the secret to Singapore’s success is that their housing projects are carefully designed to support mixed-incomes, beautiful green spaces, and access to high-quality public transportation that conveniently links residents to education and community centers. And last but not least, couple all that with the famous Singapore hawker centers (food courts) where all income classes and ethnicities meet, socialize, and dine on Singapore’s famously delicious and affordable cuisine.”
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On housing and transport
I am always amused about discussions and posts about transport and traffic where people appear to isolate the traffic as what needs to be solved, and where people criticize the latter and state that it is a transport and not a traffic problem. Both do not have the complete picture if that is what we want to start with. Land use, land development and the choices people make based on various other factors (including preferences) are among the other ingredients of the proverbial soup or dish that need to be included in the discussion. Remember land use and transport interaction? That’s very essential in understanding the big picture (macro) before even going into the details at the micro level. Why are there many car users or those who prefer to use private modes over public transport modes? Why do people prefer motorized over non-motorized modes? Maybe because people live far from their workplaces and schools? Why is that? Maybe because of housing affordability and other factors influencing choices or preferences?
Here’s a nice recent article on housing and transportation to enrich the discourse on this topic:
Litman, T. [January 7, 2021] “Housing First; Cars Last”, Planetizen, https://www.planetizen.com/node/111790?utm_source=newswire&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=news-01112021&mc_cid=2985a82f48&mc_eid=9ccfe464b1 [last accessed: 1/13/2021]
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Caught (up) in traffic 