Sean McNelis, Swinburne Institute for Social Research

That local governments need to implement an eightfold functional division of labour if they are to achieve good local housing outcomes, cumulatively and progressively

Local government housing strategies typically consist of some statistical analysis of housing and housing-related data, some qualitative work such as interviews, public forums and focus groups, the identification of particular issues or problems that councils needs to address, and some proposals or recommendations whereby these issues or problems can be addressed.

In so doing they utilise a number of methods which seek to understand what is happening in the local housing market and, moreover, seek to implement policies and strategies which will, for the better, change what is happening. But these studies also raise some complex issues about our understanding of local housing situations and the implementation of housing policies and strategies.

On the one hand, we cannot adequately understand the local housing situation without a shift to theory. A core problem, then, is the development of a set of theories and associated research methods that adequately accounts for what is actually happening and is sufficiently discerning of a multitude of perspectives to propose a framework within which to identify the key housing issues and problems in a local municipality. In short, the question is: how do we reach, progressively and cumulatively, an adequate understanding of a local housing situation, an understanding which will ground responsible local housing policies and a range of activities that will improve this situation?

On the other hand, municipalities are sites of a multitude of physical, environmental, economic, social, cultural, political and legal systems which are interlinked and interact in complex ways. Another core problem, then, is the formulation and implementation of housing policies and strategies which are not only grounded in an understanding of the housing situation, but also in an understanding of this situation within an interdisciplinary context, and thus can identify actions that mesh with this multitude of complex systems and achieve better housing (and other) outcomes.
In short, the question is: how is a theoretical understanding of housing related to the formulation of housing policies and the implementation of new sound practices within a particular municipality?

The thesis seeks to show that the eightfold functional division of labour (as ‘discovered’ by the philosopher, theologian and economist Bernard Lonergan) is needed because it ‘allows for the separate treatment of [these] issues that otherwise become enormously complex’.

This eightfold functional division of labour is an ongoing collaborative effort among housing researchers and differentiates between (i) discovering new data which confirm, complement or bring into question current understandings; (ii) striving creatively and intelligently to develop hypotheses (theoretical constructs) which account for any new data; (iii) weighing up the evidence and verifying the theory in the data; and (iv) evaluating and accounting for the theoretical constructs of past achievements, discerning those elements which relate to the data and those which are based upon an inadequate viewpoint. Such a viewpoint is foundational and operative within housing researchers, and an evaluation of their viewpoints invites
(v) a transformation of themselves and their world-view. It is from such a transformed viewpoint that housing researchers can (vi) envision future housing directions,
(vii) envision housing strategies which integrate these directions with other social, economic and cultural theories, and (viii) envision the implementation of these future housing directions and strategies within particular institutions, organisations and the roles people play within them.

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