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It is generally agreed that food, clothing and shelter are the three basic material needs of all people. A simple test for the successfulness of any economic system may therefore be the extent to which it succeeds in providing the population with these commodities. One would conjecture that in the countries that are generally considered as highly developed there would be no problems at all with their availability. And although this conjecture is to a large extent, confirmed by the evidence, it is nevertheless surprising that in western economies with the high per capita incomes housing is still an important object for public concern. Food and clothing are abundantly available in these countries, but the provision of housing is often an object of serious policy concern. To mention one striking example : in the Netherlands there still exist official figures that mention housing shortages of ten thousends of dwellings. This state of affairs is not mentioned here to motivate an exaggerated view on housing problems in Western countries. The situation in the Netherlands and comparable countries is indeed much better than that in underdeveloped countries and a comparison with developing countries would presumably show figures which are comparable to those for food or clothing. The point I want to make is that even in highly developed market economies where the availability of food and clothing is quite satisfactory, the availability of dwellings often is not.
