The Homeowner Ideology: Economic (F)Utility of Real Property Rights in Four African Cities
The Homeowner Ideology: Economic (F)Utility of Real Property Rights in Four African Cities
by Singumbe Muyeba
University of Michigan Press, 2025
ISBNs
Cloth: 978-0-472-07732-8
Paper: 978-0-472-05732-0
eISBN: 978-0-472-90493-8 (OA)
About the Book
While homeownership has clear benefits among the impoverished, The Homeowner Ideology shows that the utility of real property rights as an economic resource are severely limited in sub-Saharan African cities. Although global poverty has declined since 1990, it remains widespread in Subsahara, the region with the highest proportion of the global population living in slums. Mainstream thinking in development studies is dominated by market fundamentalist neoclassical economics and the premise that ownership reduces poverty. Singumbe Muyeba contends that this neoliberal premise is flawed and unsupported by data within the African context. Muyeba argues that property rights function as structured idle capital on the formal market in African cities and the persistence of homeownership as the intervention of choice is explained by the influence of neoliberal ideology, intergenerational transfer of homeownership culture within the family, and the state’s deliberate and active support for homeownership tenure.
About the Author
Singumbe Muyeba is Assistant Professor of African Studies at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver.
Reviews
“This book provides a thorough, well-researched, clear, and compelling argument. This particular approach is novel both in its intentional mobilization of quantitative evidence and in its focus on the ‘homeowner ideology.’ In contrast to much of the current popular development scholarship that aims to imagine how we ‘formalize the informal,’ Muyeba speaks from the data and embraces alternative perspectives that highlight the importance of usufruct rights and point to an alternative framework for thinking about the persistent challenges of urban poverty and housing. The scholarship reflects the best sort of combination of quantitative and qualitative methods.”— Jennifer Hart, Virginia Tech University
“Singumbe Muyeba’s pioneering study of four African cities brilliantly demonstrates the social benefits of homeownership, especially for women, whilst demolishing the claim that homeownership is an economic springboard. This is essential reading for anyone interested in Africa’s rapid urbanization and the interplay between social preferences, public policy and the ‘homeownership ideology.’”— Jeremy Seekings, University of Cape Town
Tags
African Perspectives, Home ownership, Economic Policy, Economic conditions, Public Policy, Business & Economics, Political Science
Open Access Information
License: CC BY-NC
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