Housing experiments: evaluating the potential of new methods to generate housing system change

Abstract

Frustration at the stagnation of an already ‘broken’ housing system has created an environment where experimentation and ‘innovation’ are seen as pathways to solving entrenched policy problems. In this context, experimental governance has gained popularity across government agencies as a method for developing new solutions to longstanding difficulties by encouraging or enabling ‘innovation’. The thesis asks if policy experiments are a productive method for generating housing system change.

This research conducted a policy review of current state housing strategies, released between 2017 and 2021, revealing increasing references and instances of experimentation in Australia. A comparative case study approach was then used to examine three policy experiments, Australian Capital Territory’s Demonstration Housing Project, the Future Homes Project from Victoria and City of Sydney Council’s Alternative Housing Ideas Challenge to assess the impacts each program was having on the housing system. Unexpected barriers to moving from experimental approaches to genuine policy reform were a lack of clarity around experiment lifecycles, scaling and evaluation, and issues around remuneration and participant protection. Benefits outside the formal scope of the projects were identified, providing evidence of the positive impact experimental governance programs can have on the housing system. The research finds that at this early stage, policy experiments are experiments in themselves, with government struggling to rectify how experimental governance programs can exist alongside traditional policy production methods. The thesis will contribute to theoretical conceptions of experimental governance programs by developing a definition of experimental governance programs in the housing space in Australia, as well as providing empirical knowledge to support the existence and operation of the urban hack, as proposed by Maalsen (2021).