Item

Abstract

Contemporary Western cities are not uniform, but display a variety of different housing forms and tenures, both between and within countries. We distinguish three general city types in this paper: low-rise, single-family dwelling cities where owner-occupation is the most prevalent tenure form; multi-dwelling building cities where tenants comprise the majority; and multi-dwelling building cities where owner-occupation is the principal tenure form. We argue that historical developments beginning in the 19th century are crucial to understanding this diversity in urban form and tenure composition across Western cities. Our path-dependent argument is twofold. First, we claim that different housing finance institutions engendered different forms of urban development during the late 19th century and had helped to establish the difference between single-family dwelling cities and multi-dwelling building cities by 1914. Second, rather than stemming from countries’ welfare systems or ‘variety of capitalism’, we argue that these historical distinctions have a significant and enduring impact on today’s urban housing forms and tenures. Our argument is supported by a unique collection of data of 1095 historical cities across 27 countries.

当代西方城市并不统一，不同国家之间和同一国家内部有着各种不同的住房形式和住房使用形式。本文区分了三种普遍的城市类型：低层单户住宅城市，其中业主自住是最普遍的使用形式；租户占主体的多户住宅城市；以业主自住为主要使用形式的多户住宅城市。我们认为，从 19 世纪开始的历史发展对于理解西方城市形态和使用形式构成的多样性至关重要。我们的路径依赖论点是双重的。首先，我们指出，不同的住房金融机构在 19 世纪末期产生了不同形式的城市开发，并在 1914 年之前促成了单户住宅城市和多住宅城市之间的差异。其次，我们指出，这些历史差异并非源于各国的福利制度或“资本主义多样性”，恰恰相反，它们对当今的城市住房形式和使用权产生了显著而持久的影响。我们的观点得到了 27 个国家 1,095 个历史城市的独特数据支持。