Multi-owned Housing: Law, Power and Practice

This book is an international, interdisciplinary, edited collection which addresses the issues raised by multi-owned residential developments, now established as a major form of housing throughout the world. The authors, and editors, represent the disciplines which have most to offer such a study: planning, sociology and law. The book aims to theorise the complexities of planning, developing, managing, and living in this type of housing, by drawing on concepts of governance and power. The contributors are all recognised as leading academics in their fields. Chapters will be based on new empirical work carried out by the authors. The book covers the main common law jurisdictions: the UK, Australia/NZ, the US, Hong Kong, Singapore and China. The analysis will benefit from looking across at the practices and problems encountered in countries with a similar legal framework, but with different social and political contexts. The book is the first comparative study of this type of housing, and the first to take a coherent theoretical approach. The analytical framework, exploring the shifts of power which occur at critical legal events in the lifetime of a multi-owned housing development, will provide a common underpinning for the chapters. Conclusions will be reached on what this means for the key actors involved: developer, managing agent and residents; and larger issues will also be addressed, including environmental sustainability and the role of the state in regulating this kind of housing development.