Because housing is a multidisciplinary, fragmented field of research, investigators are faced with the difficult task of pulling together information scattered in a wide variety of narrowly focused sources. In this volume, comprehensive, current knowledge encompassing the field as a whole is offered for the first time. Twenty-eight specialists in the major subdisciplines provide up-to-date information on the social, economic, environmental, policy, and architectural dimensions of housing and the built environment, together with extensive bibliographies for each topic. Creating a comprehensive framework for study and research in the field, this handbook will be helpful to planners, architects, developers, and citizens groups in addition to academics in promoting better understanding of the broader issues of housing.

ELIZABETH HUTTMAN is Professor of Sociology at California State University, Hayward. She has written Housing and Social Services for the Elderly, coedited Housing Needs and Policy Approaches, and authored Transnational Housing Policy in Home Environments (edited by Irving Altman and Carol Werner).

WILLEM VAN VLIET is urban and environmental sociologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder. His published work includes contributions to anthologies and journals in urban studies, planning, and environment-behavior studies and a number of edited books, including most recently Housing Markets and Policies under Fiscal Austerity, Women, Housing, and Community and the International Handbook of Housing Policies and Practices (forthcoming).