Rental Housing

The vast majority of rental housing around the world is unsubsidized and in private hands. Everywhere there are great needs for safe, decent, and affordable housing at the lowest income levels. A few countries-mostly developed ones-have a sizable social rental sector, yet even here the demand cannot be met and there are often long waiting lists for subsidized housing in the main cities. In most emerging economies, the only affordable rentals available are in the informal sector, with poor housing conditions and little security of tenure. This book is an effort to bring rental housing to the forefront of the housing agenda of countries around the world and to provide general guidance for policy makers whose actions can have an effect on where and how people live. It warns of the challenges they face and provides guidelines on how to develop or redevelop a sound rental sector. In doing so, it can enable key players in housing markets-be they government officials, private rental property owners, financiers and nongovernmental organizations-to add rental housing as a critical housing option and to have an informed discussion on how best to stimulate this sector.|Police reform in countries in transition from state socialism toward more democratic forms of governance has risen to prominence in recent years. Reforming policing systems that served primarily to protect the party-states from their opponents into systems that serve and protect civic society has come to be seen as an essential prerequisite and concomitant of the democratization process in transitional countries. This book describes what has happened to the policing systems in fourteen countries in central and eastern Europe; what reforms in ideology, organization, policies and practices have been undertaken; what has changed in the way policing is accomplished; and an assessment of whether the policing system has moved closer toward democratic policing. As such, it provides a comparative overview of what has been achieved since 1989. Marina Caparini is senior fellow at the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces. Otwin Marenin is professor in the Department of Political Science/Criminal Justice, Washington State University.