RE: [Pc] demographics - housing

[John Schinnerer <John-Schinnerer@data-dimensions.com>]

Aloha,

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	eric + michiko [SMTP:emstorm@metro.net]
>I have some trouble with the housing part (above); I wonder what
>"susbstandard" means for it to include all but 20% of the houses in the
>world.  I have traveled a good bit in Asia, enough to see how at least half
>the world lives, and I have trouble with this one.

As Ivan Illich exemplifies in one of his essays in "Towards a History of
Needs" - when legislation was passed into law in Venezuela "guaranteeing"
every citizen the "right" to housing, 70-80% of the population suddenly
found themselves living in "substandard" housing.  Not that there was
anything wrong with it from a bioregional peasant's perspective - but of
course they weren't the ones who defined the "standard."

John Schinnerer