Housing, the state and the market in Thailand: Enabling and enriching the private sector *

Abstract

Housing has never been high on the political agenda in Thailand. Except in the late 1970s and early 1980s when the National Housing Authority built low-cost rental apartments, successive governments have not much interfered in the land and housing market, but allowed supply and demand to meet. When it played an active role, the government would facil- itate private-sector housing development and keep interest rates low to support homebuyers. However, over the years, the number of slum dwellers in Bangkok has not decreased, while government policy may have benefited private developers more than it benefited low-income homebuyers. This paper discusses the role of the state and the market in the provision of housing for low-income groups in the Bangkok Metropolitan Region of Thailand. Successive governments in Thailand had no comprehensive and integrated housing policy; they merely launched disjointed programmes to assist low-income groups to improve their housing. More importantly, the state created conditions that enabled the private sector to produce housing at lower costs. This hands-off approach has had both positive and negative consequences. This paper reviews the roles and contributions of the various public- and private-sector actors involved in housing production in Thai- land, particularly in Bangkok. The focus of this paper is on the Bangkok Metropolitan Region, because it is by far the largest and economically most important urban area of the country.