Introductory Chapter: Housing Policy Matters

1. Introduction

The family represents the first core of social life, which can be reflected by the architectural program throughout a house. The house was developed in time and place and was therefore socially and economically developed with the housing program. Current technology helps the housing program to get a different level of significant ways of manufacturing and designing structures. The house has followed a man through history. It is one of the man’s oldest and most long-lived cultural objects. They have been protected against the environment, and there are rooms for business and social life, capital investment, and symbolism. Home and house are concepts that are closely linked, where shape, function, and technology are so intertwined and meaningful that they do not quickly change themselves. Each discussion of health and the environment must be seen in this broader context, not as isolated technical or medical issues. This complexity is not only a difficulty but also an asset. Housing is the umbrella term for different types of accommodation in which one has temporary or permanent shelter to live, sleep, work, or relax. All kinds of homes, company buildings, schools, museums, and offices are covered below [1]. Also, it concerns the provision of such forms of accommodation by, for example, municipal and national authorities. The concept of the housing provides a host of basic human needs, particularly shelter, personal property, safety, and privacy. Permanent housing (“residence”) is also a prerequisite for full engagement of a person in society, so the state differently supports it. The housing industry deals with construction and architecture, urbanism, and housing sociology. In other arguments, the housing includes the entirety of institutions, activities, and arrangements for providing the population with housing. These include the housing stocks, the housing industry, state and municipal housing policies and households as consumers or consumers itself. It is one of the basic requirements of human communities, where every society has to create their arrangements to provide space and facilities for the lives of its members [2].

A general definition of housing refers to physical and spiritual aspects related to real geography, and then it is necessary to consider terms such as territory, land, location, place, built space, area, material elements, etc. But there is also a definition of urban space, based on social aspects of urban space, which refers to the meanings/meaning/meanings/joints that various housing spaces have in the social life, for different people and different interaction situations. This definition aims to understand housing as a “social construct” that is a thing that does not mean anything in itself, but it only has meaning to the extent that people use it, knows it, gives it a name, wants it, negotiates it, etc. Many of the famous examples of European housing elements reflect the way of life of a wealthy social house. The rise in industrial proletariat has increased the density of industrial cities in the first half of the nineteenth century, and with it, there has been an acute need for housing, and the workers’ jobs were minimal, crammed on very small land, and were either overlapped or staggered along the streets forming urban corridors [3]. The first collective worker’s home was built in 1513 by Fugger banker for workers as apartments having two rooms each, and by joining and overlapping others resulting in a long building comprising 53 apartments. The collective workers’ home was resumed in the nineteenth century in the cities affected by malaria. There were also homes in suburbs and factories. Generally, courtyard apartments offer only the minimal shelter. With simplicity and meager effort made by architects to solve the plastic appearance, the exterior architecture they offered was easy to recognize. After the realization of the workhouse, the problem of conceiving mass dwellings as a social order was also raised. In this sense, some of the great architects of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries included them in their creative preoccupations. Brothers August and Gustave Perret built, in 1902, the first report house in the world and reinforced concrete, in Paris. The apartments were overlapped, and the building has a shallow land. This time, however, the rooms did not even have minimal surfaces, but by the way the entire building was designed, a new way of urban dwelling has gained an unprecedented development especially after the Second World War. The one who brought substantial innovations to the housing sector was Le Corbusier. Although he proposed several buildings for collective housing, only in 1950, a housing unit was built in Marseilles that includes living spaces and equipment of first necessity: commerce, schools, etc. Walter Gropius and Bauhaus specialists from 1922 used conventional apartment designs to make massive dwelling buildings in the form of parallelepiped bulkheads, generally located in the suburbs of major cities such as Frankfurt, Berlin, etc. The tradition of autochthon dwelling offers many spatial solutions and ways of using the dwellings according to the local conditions. The partitioning of the rooms is subordinated to the natural heating source [3]. The rooms with living rooms had to be developed to SE, thus creating forms in the plan. The area of a space is considered by most of the most essentials. This is also reflected by the number of rooms, the activities that facilitate the correlation of the size of the dwelling with that of the family, being the expression between the total surface and that of a room. The height of the rooms was reduced, compared to 3.5 m height rooms in the nineteenth century. Some publications were sponsored by various international organizations such as UN, UNECE, UNHCR, UN-HABITAT, Council of Europe, to be defined. Nonetheless housing represents a complex of human phenomenon, but it is not limited to the simple possession of a dwelling (whether appropriate or not), it includes many other rights, such as the right to nondiscrimination (the homeless suffering severe discrimination and marginalization) and, consequently, the right to equal treatment, as well as the right to self-determination and self-realization [4]. Those excluded from adequate housing have in fact the same basic housing requirements as any other individual: not only in the sense of shelter but also in the sense of access to basic utilities and services—water, hygienic conditions, etc.—security, security against forced eviction, neighborhood security—to ensure at least a minimum of security and dignity as the foundation, and prerequisites of normal social integration and participation. To opt for a narrow view of perceiving these needs only in terms of physical needs would lead to an underestimation of the symbolic importance of dwelling/living in the everyday life of individuals—life in the community and in society—and would lead to the undermining of the fundamental notion of human dignity, which embraces the whole human rights philosophy, whose role is precisely to ensure the necessary preconditions for its observance [5].

The central control turns out to be a concern of municipalities. A municipality or group of municipalities can introduce an urban social life and housing ordinance and, among other things, a designated living space that cannot be taken into use or given for occupation if no housing permit (residence permit) has been granted before putting into use. Thus, the city becomes at the moment not just buildings, roads, parks, fences, abandoned corners, water pipes, cable networks, but it grew as an especial interaction among citizens, contacts, social relationships, direct, and indirect communication interaction. All these factors represent the life of a contemporary city, which is offered by the complexity of urban social life and gives the real growth in cities. Consequently, the city is a complex system of the multisocial group, involving in a series of social institutions and a typical configuration of social relationships [6]. Residences make the city alive, and then the social relationships develop the city functions to be the title of modern housing studies. They began to improve dually during the nineteenth century. The nineteenth-century cities experienced specific problems:

• increase in housing density,

• intensive rural-urban migration and immigration from poorer countries,

• infrastructure precarious (roads, potable water supply, sewerage networks, etc.),

• increasing tensions over inequalities socially visible.

At the same time, radical changes were taking place in critical areas such as the organization of work, an organization of capital flows, an organization of social classes, and an organization of families. The need to understand these changes and to solve their associated problems has stimulated the opening of new areas of thought, debate, action, and study. The challenge was accepted by thinkers and practitioners who, through their achievements, have become the founders of disciplines such as:

• Urban sociology (a subject that studies social activities and social interactions in urban areas)

• Social/cultural urban anthropology (a discipline that studies the diversity of city lifestyles)

• Human geography (a subject that explores the relationships between people and human communities with their territory), the city social life

• Environmental psychology (a discipline that studies the relationships between humans and human communities with the objects, spaces, buildings, natural elements, and phenomena that surround them)

• Ecology (a discipline that studies the relationship between all living organisms and their living environment) [7].

All these disciplines are interconnected and have a common purpose: to provide a better understanding of everything about housing concept and urban life. The innovative studies of housing phenomenon, sociology, anthropology, environmental psychology, and human geography build a close life of the city’s inhabitants and uncover unpredictable aspects, and it provides unexpected explanations of things that seem banal. These studies can be centered on less visible social groups, survival strategies, cooperation and support activities of social networks, where existing housing mechanisms generate some social problems, etc. Therefore, housing phenomenon and urban studies are not only used to make an academic environment but also to provide the community with a relevant data and materials that help us in taking a fit urban decision and give the city an effective housing strategies and us multiorienteered with a better understand one another and improve our everyday life. Researchers in housing and social life in a city have carefully analyzed the impact of contemporary political and economic systems on people’s lives in the urban environment. They focused on the problematic aspects and its effects on people living in the city and benefited us with the solutions. One of the main study subjects, which require an in-depth analysis, is the studies of anthropology. The investigation takes in daily evidence interactions between residence’s everyday experiences in a city, negotiations between groups and different houses—in short, the microsocial reality, where anthropology investigation provides the community, a depth analyzes of various groups, communities, economic classes, neighborhoods, human clusters, social networks to facilitate communication, and understanding between them, besides housing phenomenon. The anthropological perspective also offers a critique (often constructive) of culture and the social world, where the anthropological perspective must be at the heart of any project of social, economic, and cultural development. Many cultural descriptions, social projects, or programs to improve life and humanity have failed in history, precisely because they lacked an anthropological perspective.

2. Housing task between “home requirement and house concept”

A house is an essential object of our life that represents a professional concern, which is a vast and varied subject of different specialists in planning, financing, design, sociological research, anthropology, anthropometry and hygiene, construction and technology, and administration and maintenance [8]. Our epoch, especially in the second half of it, is fundamentally characterized by a significant increase in the divisions upon collective dwellings and the transition from the individual houses of residential buildings to that of the ensembles, a tension of a sharp rise in the pace of city development. The evolution of the geometric tram is also reflected by a continuous construction regime, in planned or spontaneous growths, which the historians of the house did not give in the past due to importance. As a way of living, there are three main categories distinguished: popular districts, characterized by continuous construction areas, and either of the adjoining houses or the carpet or terraces dictated by the slope of the land dwelling. A rural home can be reported by a yard, which is determined and equipped directly according to the nature of the work, where the senior house generally benefits from a garden that could favor receptions for social contacts. The residential area from a vast expanse of Sumerian and Egyptian metropoles includes a wide variety of houses without windows to the narrow, sometimes straw-edged streets of the Sumerian and Egyptian metropolis, which are the source of the large and luxurious dwellings of ancient and Hellenistic Greece and are then taken over in the classicism of the Roman world. The housing process tends to become the custom of a serial of industrial production that rapidly acquires for new developments in building techniques, especially in installations; thus, the concern for rigorous and “conforming” dimensions (Le Corbusier: “habitation de grandeur conformed”) of the spaces and the dwellings as a whole [9]. The social conditions of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have, as is well known, determined the growth of the housing process by mass dwellings. Their morphology has evolved to the present, with the tendency for minimal spaces to be diversified by functionality and form.

3. Human settlements and house evolution process

The human communities in the city take the form of their neighborhoods. The neighborhood is a fundamental element of urban life, because cities grow by addition, not by houses, but by human communities. To understand how these communities are aggregated, we need to understand their relationship with the territory, the critical role of living in a common space, and the ties that are established with it. People act within specific frameworks created on the basis of their lifestyle choices and resources; in this context, they choose the type of housing community to which they belong, appropriate to them: in the urban or rural area, at the house or in the block, and in the center or on the outskirts of the locality. Human settlement perceives itself as a new type of business that reflects a future-oriented component, and a system based on the construction sector, and as something new can be further promoted through its actions. There are three modes with three relationships that can help to understand the connection between the future and the past (history) [10]:

1. Requirement state (B). Here, society has formulated a social command, after an in-depth analysis of the possibility and requires a specific active form.

2. Constructive form (K). A real architectural element, compared with the current stage of technology and esthetic understanding.

3. Application process (A). Here, you will find the architecture element in.

Therefore, one can follow the relationship between people (individual/group) and the architectural element or surrounding objects. The cooperation between the three settlement phenomena can follow three processes:

• F1—between B and K, the activity of design and execution.

• F2—between K and A, the activity of division, use, and marketing.

• F3—between A and B, transfers the processes from S1 (current situation) to S2 (future position).

The city transformations in the recent decades caused by the industrialization and urbanization phenomena have affected the dwelling and the structure of the residential human communities in the sense that they have experienced consolidation processes determined by everyday life in public housing assemblies, processes of population dislocation following urban reconstruction policies, or phenomena such as gentrification. There are many studies on the role of cultural changes in the process of renewal, and there are also no references to classroom membership within the context of discussions about lifestyle, consumption patterns, cultural options, and so on. From this perspective, the middle class gentrification population invests in properties of cultural and historical value (e.g., the preference for a particular architectural style of the building), thus affirming their distance from the inferior social strata and constructing its identity based on consumption as an investment form as a means of personal expression and as a symbol of social status. Changes in the economy have led to new ethics of consumer behavior. It can be viewed spatially, as properties in gentrifying areas are considered to be a commodity for those interested in living in beautiful areas, considering the cultural-historical value and the positioning in the relative neighborhood of what the economy of urban services means. In conclusion, speaking of the influence of culture through the process of renovation, we refer, in particular, not only to the implications of the level of education of the population renewal, but also to the influence of factors such as media consumption, advertising, etc., which outline the system of esthetic preferences of individuals.

3.1. House edifice and functions

The house not only fills the requirements, but it is also a pleasure. From the child’s stacking of bricks to learning how to master the heavens and space to self-expression, construction is something that concerns us all deeply. The architecture is everywhere; no one avoids it. Even the nonself-employed person still has to live and, as a matter of option, choose a home with care and empathy characterized by his own experiences from previous homes. The same applies to users and clients of other types of buildings. It is easy to lose the perspective in the construction industry’s everyday life, both on the lust and on the needs, in search of timetables and cost reductions and the necessity of routines. The breach of the methods and the need to think long-term are nevertheless integrated into the requirement for environmental adjustment. We must keep alive the desire to build. But it can be the essential prerequisite for a rapid breakthrough for new thinking. The requirement for conversion to an environmentally sound construction can adequately utilize, be a challenge to think about what we are about and return to the architecture’s starting points: building and living. The building is indeed a short stage in the life of the house or somewhat several recurring short stages. But there is the prerequisite for long and hopeful life. The house, as we treat it in this chapter, is stupid and flowing of energy, air, and water. These are permanent structures, a kind of constants when correctly designed provide space for the different variables of the dwelling. Flexibility and generality are the most durable qualities of the house. If they exist, there are also the conditions for all the attributes and memories that a long life can give. Through proven and straightforward types of houses, many variations can be made.

It is necessary to define housing course as a viable system of functional (structured) complexes and coordinates. UN had classified settlement and identified 10 general functions that each edifice must have:

1. recreation and lectures,

2. prepare meals,

3. dining,

4. relaxation and sleep,

5. study and play,

6. toilet,

7. hygienic necessities,

8. cleaning,

9. driving and storage,

10. exterior conditions.

Other features are family or individual grades (information, social conditions, etc.)

The house functions can be divided into two major zones:

• Night area (isolation, personal life, relaxation, intimacy) adapted to the functions (4, 6, 7, 8, 10)

• Daily area (animation, collective consciousness, activity) adapted to the functions (1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 10).

The human settlement takes the form of their neighborhoods. The neighborhood is a fundamental element of urban life, because it grows by addition, and not by house application in practice, and wherever the human communities reflect that system correctly. To understand how comprehensive these communities are, it is necessary to understand their relationship with the territory, the critical role of people in a common space, and the ties that are established with it. Residence from the city reacts within a specific framework. However, they are made by their lifestyle choices and the resources that they have. In this context, they have the possibility to choose, which kind of housing community that they belong to, or whether it is appropriate to them, is that organized in the form of the urban or rural zone, is that confirmed in the way of individual or collective arrangement, and is that located in the center or on the outskirts of the locality. The transformations on the human settlement in the recent decades caused by the industrialization and urbanization phenomena have affected the dwelling and the structure of the residential human communities in the sense that they have experienced consolidation processes determined by everyday life in urban housing assemblies, processes of population dislocation following urban deconstruction policies, or phenomena such as gentrification. Gentrification means turning an aging metropolitan area into a more financially populated, socially populated neighborhood by renovating buildings, the consequences being, on the one hand, to increase the value of those properties (land and buildings in the area) and the relocation of poor old residents.

3.2. Healthy housing environment

Beautiful architecture is ultimately a prerequisite for health and well-being, which is not only about physiological needs but also about the experience and the feeling of a house. Just by theory, we are different from what is physiological experience and emotion. A healthy house must, therefore, also be a beautiful whole. A house that does not take into account human physiological needs cannot be a sturdy house just through coloring and new furniture. A home that only meets the physiological needs can never be a pleasant overall experience.

Resource demand in the form of energy conservation was the first environmental issue in the building that attracted much attention. Partly as a result of unilateral energy conservation, the “sick houses” and a new insight that health issues must be included in the program work. In recent years, the cycle has also reached the construction industry. The goal must be to have all three aspects involved and make them interact. We initiate the chapter by discussing health, resources, and circuits as the necessary conditions for healthy and environmentally adapted houses, and then proceed with the structure and infrastructure of the house: the different parts of the body and the technical systems. Thus presented, the problem may appear at first sight to be difficult, if not impossible, of the solution. What,’ some may be disposed to ask, can be done to make the country more attractive and the city healthier, and make people live in a comfortable environment. Air quality, for example, is often measured with carbon dioxide content. Such single parameters have shortcomings in reflecting human experiences. The fact that they have become a commonplace as a quality criterion is linked to the need to be able to verify the results of technical solutions, that the measurements are relatively easy to perform, and that accurate numbers give confidence. An unfortunate example of this is the unilateral attention that some environmental and health protection administrations attach to the Occupational Safety and Health Agency’s target value of 1000 ppm carbon dioxide in workplaces. The effect of the retroactively demanding requirement may be that millions of kronor are invested in renovations of ventilation systems in schools and other public spaces that worsen the indoor climate. A better criterion of a healthy house that does not threaten health is to investigate how many of the people stay in the house who think the indoor environment is reasonable or acceptable. In a good house, the sensation of comfort must be high, where, it should be no abnormally high frequencies of mucous membranes and skin problems associated with the building [11]. There are many adverse effects of unhealthy housing environment, for example, the classic allergens that come from many resources such as, industrial pollutions, smoking, and humid buildings are considered to be the most critical “develops” of allergic symptoms. Allergic reactions can also be triggered by chemical emissions and odors from building materials and furnishings, as well as high levels of particulate matter in the indoor air due to inadequate cleaning and soiled or poorly functioning ventilation systems. The risk of getting allergy is more significant in the contaminated states and larger in homes with high humidity than with low humidity. It is now also considered likely that the sick dwellings make part of the explanation where allergies increase. The effect of a bad selection in building materials can be a source of cancer, which is related directly or indirectly to building materials, which represent an area where the knowledge is insufficient. Several substances included in building materials are classified as carcinogenic, p. a. formaldehyde. The World Health Organization (WHO), a list of more than 10 carcinogens are found, mainly in paints, varnishes, and floor materials [The ELIB survey estimates that between 250,000 and 500,000 people live in radon-radish housing homes over 400 Bq/m³ and are therefore at increased risk of lung cancer, especially in combination with cigarette smoking [12]. Research also shows a connection, albeit weakly, between different diseases and exposure of electromagnetic fields. The study is currently underway to clarify the relationship between the indoor environment and allergy and other hypersensitivities. The results of the surveys, thus, far made are:

• Troubles are more common in the younger house; the most difficulty is experienced in houses built after 1975.

• Complaints on “dry air” and discomfort with nasal membranes are more common in residential buildings with a mechanical ventilation system than in houses with self-suction only.

• There is a clear connection between the lack of ventilation, high humidity, the occurrence of domestic dust mites, and asthma.

There are a lot of factors that must take in evidence for creating a healthy housing area. Moisture due to rain, snow, soil moisture, building moisture, condensation, pipelines, and humidity from humans and businesses affects the health. Technical solutions and quality assurance can significantly reduce it. Building and soil moisture can probably be avoided with the right measures. Moisture safety is influenced by choice of roof rails, placement of dumb pipes, a solution of details around bay windows, etc. The 60’s and 70’s flat roofs are responsible for a large part of the mold problems in schools and day care centers [13]. But moisture will always be found in buildings, partly because the houses are out and therefore exposed to rain and snow, somewhat because we continuously add moisture to the house. Materials and technical solutions must, therefore, be chosen that allow for natural moisture migration. Fresh air and the right temperature are essential to health. The need to ventilate a building is due to heat from solar radiation, the number of people staying in the house, the humidity and heat sources in the business, emissions from building materials, the volume of the room, the heat storage capacity, and the seasonality. Ventilation in homes is primarily intended to remove moisture from people, showers, laundry, and dishes. In schools and other houses where many people are staying in the same room, the ventilation requirement is mainly about keeping the temperature at a reasonable level. The temperature too high, above 35°, is often considered as lousy air. With rising room temperature, humidity decreases during the winter and the release of impurities from building materials increases [14]. The need for ventilation can be influenced by the orientation of the building, window shading, sun shielding, volume, mood and material selection, and the extent to which furnishings and equipment collect dust and dirt. If the house’s climate control system includes these factors and the airflow varies according to activity and season, there is the need to build ventilation systems that have fewer critical components than today’s “advanced” mechanical systems that have often been found to cause more problems than they solve. Also, we can accept greater temperature fluctuations between day and night or summer and winter; the systems can be further simplified. Through balconies, terraces, and beautiful outdoor places and gardens for work and relaxation, and by designing the transition zone from the outside to make it easy to get out, the architect can make it more attractive to stay out for more hours a day. It also facilitates the weathering of clothes, textiles, and furniture. Healthy housing is created by direct natural lighting where sunlight means a lot for health and for well-being. Studies show the adverse health effects of windowless rooms. The architectural task is to achieve good daylight without the temperature rushing in, thus creating a need for cooling, reducing the requiring sizeable mechanical ventilation plants where they would not be needed.

Building materials and installations must also be chosen for health reasons. Although there is no scientifically related relationship between ill health and the delivery of volatile organic matter from building materials in the low doses that occur outside the industrial environment, there is every reason to choose documents that issue a minimum of emissions [15]. Several case studies show that self-emission of building materials caused health problems such as eye irritation from paints or building boards. A significant problem is the pollution caused by chemical reactions when exposed to moisture or high alkalinity. In the Chemicals Inspectorate’s list of pollutants, all substances are classified according to allergy-producing substances, substance causing mucous membrane inflammation, etc. This list can be compared with the product information that the material suppliers are required to provide for hazardous health substances included in the product. Through architectural solutions, the need for emitting materials such as glue, filler, and joint pulp can be significantly reduced, sometimes eliminated. Low-frequency noise and vibration caused by ventilation systems can be overcome partly by choosing a quiet ventilation system, such as self-sufficiency, partly by a well-chosen assembly of the unit, careful damping, soundproofing of the fan room, making ducts, fans and pads prefabricated, and adequate noise suppressor installed [16].

4. Housing upon physical factor consideration

4.1. Macro-climate and healthy housing arrangements

The relationships of good housing arrangement are apparent. Throughout history, house construction has often illustrated not only on how to solve a problem, but also on how to acquire another. Protection against climate impact in the form of winter’s biting cold, ice-storms, and a penetrating rainfall has been a prerequisite for survival at all levels. The risks of moving into a new housing structure indicate that moisture problems in homes are known for a long time [17, 3]. The turn of the century’s speculative housing with moisture, lice, congestion, lack of daylight, and fresh air created the foundation for the massive renovation of our housing stock carried out in the twentieth century. Healthy housing for all became one of the most important driving forces in modern architecture. Resource demand in the form of energy conservation was the first environmental issue in the building that attracted much attention. Partly, as a result of unilateral energy conservation, the “sick houses” and a new insight into the health issues must be included in the program work.

4.2. Renovation concept on old metropolitan areas

The starting point for any housing or urban renewal plan is of course that the city is not automatically maintained and updated in consistent with new social needs. Therefore, the first comprehensive identification of the content of the urban renewal concept could be that it should include all activities aimed at such maintenance and updating—modernization of the city. The modernization of big cities has primarily been achieved by adding new parts that have divided the existing obsolete parts into a different role so that either consciousness was not of the utmost importance that they were outdated or the new position and role enabled economic transformation and updating. The idea was not particularly interested in the existing city but instead created a modern city outside, which in a brief time moved the city center’s functions, i.e., where the demand for the model was most excellent, to the new urban area [18]. The loopholes that have the existing city were thereby reduced to a partial problem, an isolated barrel tide problem, which was not an obstacle to the city’s participation in a general industrial sustained social development. It is essential to have an urban renewal through growth because it focuses on the particular issue today and must take place without application of the dynamic and the disassembly factors, where, the rise has historically created. If the city subject is restricted and the definition of urban renewal is conservative so the focus will be on activities aimed at transforming maintain, update, modernize—the already existing parts of the city, then become one of the first significant examples of urban renewal Paris’s modernization under Napoleon HI and Haussmann.

5. The interactions among residences, housing, and settlement

The intention of this process can be done through outgoing work to listen to the residence groups from the settlement and how the area can be representing, where a citizen initiating process should take place. They have to feel invited to have an opinion on this and partly so that they can see that they have a real influence on how an urban development debate develops. The experience of this process is gathered in a recommendation for how a future process toward a citizen-inducing urban development process can look out for settlement and surrounding areas. Also, the process will come out in some directions of some specific projects that will be supported and which individuals are willing to proceed with the plans. In recent years, public debate about urban housing development and citizen participation seems to have aroused increasing doubts as to whether the past efforts will be sufficiently responsive to the challenges increasingly faced by major cities. The criticism is often that the existing efforts are reactive in the sense that it typically focuses on solving acute problems, whereby the area’s resources are often ignored, and the long-term development perspective disappears. It is clear that the traditional requirements/problem-based approach to urban development usually has some unintended adverse side effects, whereby the efforts often create clients rather than active citizen—and thus an increased dependence on external assistance in the district. It became clear that the social development aid based on foreign support is a central part of this negative spiral. This is because the local institutions and organizations, thereby, pacify and lose functionality, whereby the district gradually loses its power as well as attracting resource-rich citizens. Therefore, it is essential in urban development to let the community revitalize itself from the inside, by local institutions and organizations actively applying their existing resources and anchoring in the area about creating a quality of life and increasing the attractiveness of the city. In this context, it is crucial that this happens in an autonomous process, as the institutions of the region are responsible—and thus the ownership to create. Based on the experimental results, it becomes a necessity to develop the process of individual housing requirements by using sustainability beyond the consultancy assistance. To succeed, it is, therefore, essential that in the development process, an optic is used with a radically different focus than the problem-oriented approach [19]. The resource based on the urban development (asset-based community development) is one of the most well-informed bids on a developmental approach that takes into account the above issues as well as potentials. The method is based on comparative studies of urban development methods, and their success rates thus find itself on the following basis for urban development. Communities and districts can themselves create an event by identifying and utilizing existing (but often unknown) resources in new ways. This requires the district actors explicitly focus on finding—and using—the area’s resources. [19] The beyond experiences point to the future’s citizen inducing processes. With this in mind, the following is presented as a possible approach that can be used as a reference framework for citizen initiating operations in the research area target.

6. Investigation model by application of “Appreciative inquiry method”

It is not expedient in the experience of the interviews conducted as well as the research on citizen’s involvement to provide recommendations for specific individual projects. Discussions are the most critical component of the study, where a crucial point in the talks is that the actual content of the process must be defined by the involved residences snoring than external consultants if the process is to be sustainable in the area. It is necessary to comprehend that foreign players move focus from the subject of the process to support the process itself. The aim of the procedure is that the parties involved acquiring competencies that generally raise the capacity of the area to develop independently. The objective of this type of development process is thus to create a framework in which local actors establish independent shopping competences through work on topics that they consider to be important. Ideally, such a goal aims at creating a self-reinforcing effect, through which actors through local actions develop improvements in the local area and simultaneously strengthen their shopping skills. This increases the importance of the actors in the local area, which further enhances the actor’s power. For achieving the primary objective of the research, it will be essential to create a framework that ensures that stakeholders in the area as well as outside the area form part of the resource-based interaction with each other. It means that the parties’ focus is directed toward strengthening the other parties’ shopping opportunities in the area, which can be done by supporting the individual player being able to bring his resources into play. Alongside that process, it will furthermore be crucial that the different players connect their resources with each other. This will allow for synergies and new business opportunities. With this aim, it will be necessary, as illustrated below, to coordinate efforts between the following actors:

1. The city municipality: it would be essential that the professionals with contact to the area build competence to consultative support resource-based development processes in the area. This means in concrete terms that interacting with the area’s stakeholders will be able to work targeted with the promoting processes that increase their shopping competence.

2. Governmental organizations: public organizations will, through an outward focus on the area as well as through interorganizational efforts, be able to apply their knowledge and anchoring in the area to become active partners in creating a quality of life and increasing the attractiveness of the city.

3. Voluntary associations and networks: it is vital to create a common platform for many associations and networks active in the area. This platform can support associations and networks in coordinating their efforts and creating synergies between individual forces. In parallel, such a body could make associations and networks visible about the critical cooperation with the municipality and the public organizations in the area. The voluntary associations and systems aim to establish a common platform for many associations and operations in the area. This platform gives associations and networks a visible common position, allowing them to be continuously involved in the area’s development. Furthermore, this platform supports associations and networks in coordinating their efforts as well as creating synergies between their respective resources. The platform is established as an umbrella organization for the associations and systems in the area.

4. Fiery souls (human with individual ideas and competences): in the research area, there exist a large number of private individuals deeply committed to creating diverse developmental processes. These people represent an essential resource in the area. It will be a force for potential development processes to actively involve the firefighters, who often have an extensive network and unique local knowledge. This focuses on the potential of creating a joint forum for the fire souls. This would facilitate their involvement and enable them to contribute to strengthening their competencies and process management skills actively. For enthusiasts, it includes a large number of private individuals who are deeply committed to creating diverse developmental processes. These people represent an essential resource in the area. It will be a force for potential development processes to actively involve the human with unique ideas, who often have an extensive network as well as unique local knowledge [20]. The vision is to create a joint forum for the fire souls, which will facilitate their involvement. Furthermore, this will enable their competencies and process management and development processes to be strengthened (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

The interaction between environmental actors.

Targeted efforts aimed at improving these four players’ position in the area can, therefore, be recommended. This can be realized through the following projects aimed at linking the players’ resources with each other as well as strengthening their competence to implement citizen-initiating processes [21]. Central to this is that the actors themselves define the actual content of these processes.

7. Conclusion

Housing phenomenon, public spaces, infrastructure, public services and institutions, housing assemblies, environmental elements, jobs, etc., are the main subjects of the housing topic. At first glance, the cities are chaotic and dizzying; however, attentively, it is noticed that urban life has a specific rhythm that most people know and follow. People adhere to specific written and unwritten rules, succeeding more or less in sharing their resources and living together. The vast majority of urban residents comply with traffic rules that respect people with special needs, meet queues, pay for public services, and follow a school or work program. Moreover, they do not interact with everyone on the street, do not put on armor and do not enter the homes of others, etc. All of this is due to the social order of urban life. From the new orientation of housing and social life, it becomes clear that housing sets rules concerning the distribution of living space and the composition of the existing space stock. A vast majority of built structures are (and have been at all periods) dwellings: detached houses, row houses, apartment blocks of various heights, etc. Today, new generations of scholars have begun to look at the history of these “ordinary” dwellings of the modern period. Stimulated by the pioneering work of Gwendolyn Wright, Alan Gowans, Anthony King, Dell Upton, and other writers of the 1980s, two new histories of builders’ houses, apartment dwellings, working-class housing, mass housing of all types, and the housing of marginal populations and slaves now diverge from Pevsner’s restrictive formula. It is time we begin thinking differently about housing, regarding what our shelters are and should be made of, and of how we create and inhabit them. Housing is not meant to be a one-size-fits-all or bigger-is-better proposition. Today, all over America and the world, individuals and groups are creating homes that do not fit the mold. Homeowners in Alabama, Idaho, and Colorado are building small, artful homes using salvaged materials, never taking out construction loans. In Texas and North Carolina, people are working together to reclaim building supplies and whole houses before they go to the landfill, using them to create new homes and neighborhoods for hardworking families. In Reno, a pair of designers, sick of seeing their inner-city crumble, is revitalizing old buildings and blighted areas.