Another day in paradise? Life on the margins in urban New Zealand.
This paper examines the relationships between housing and health with respect to a sample of New Zealand public housing applicants. In the first part of the paper, the notion of incipient homelessness is reviewed, the production of this population in advanced capitalist societies is considered and the social geography of the inadequately housed in New Zealand is surveyed. The second part of the paper presents some of the data collected in a survey of the inadequately housed in Auckland and Christchurch (n = 213 households). The results suggest that housing is an important determinant of the health and well-being of this population, but that rehousing the poor should be seen as only one step in addressing inequalities in contemporary urban New Zealand.
Kearns
R A
RA
Department of Geography, University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Smith
C J
CJ
Abbott
M W
MW
D005006:Ethnicity; D006304:Health Status; D006703:Ill-Housed Persons; D006801:Humans; D009520:New Zealand; D011056:Political Systems; D011638:Public Housing / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015406:Single Parent; D013312:Stress, Physiological / Q000209:etiology; D014507:Urbanization