Page 20 - Housing & Poverty In Malta With A Focus On The Southern Harbour Region

have managed to attract a greater number of destitute households from the other parts
of the Island than the number leaving the region. In fact, at times, poverty patterns end
up trailing government policy in relation to housing. Wherever large social housing
projects undertaken by Government happen to be located, concentrations of destitution
tend to follow.

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The 2002 Malta Environment and Planning Authority (MEPA) Housing Topic Paper sheds
light on the major variables underpinning internal migration within the Island, which
implicitly are of direct relevance to vacant housing stock and poverty patterns. Marriage,
a change in household size, the attractiveness of the neighbourhood and improvement in
the type of home are highlighted as being the major variables. Chart 1 in Appendix 1
ascribes different percentages to the different variables spurring internal migration.
These variables and the percentage weights thereof have been estimated by the MEPA
by use of surveys. Further to this, “[t]he current trend is for most of Malta’s residential
development to take place in the greenfield land allocated in the Temporary Provisions
Schemes … While to a large extent this pattern was dictated by the land allocations in the
Schemes, it has nevertheless resulted in a suburbanisation trend that has left the Malta’s
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older urban areas with a declining population” . If this conclusion is correct, it might well
be the case that those households with enough money to move out of the Southern
Harbour Region (particularly the locations with more destitution) are moving out while
the others who don’t have enough money to move out get stuck there. This could
suppress or depress house prices in the area relative to other areas in Malta and could
also attract more destitute people who can afford to buy housing only in such areas to
the Southern Harbour Region, thereby reinforcing this poverty concentration effect. The
stronger this effect is, the likelier the associated location-based stigma is apt to become
and the more concentrated poverty will be in this area as time goes by unless policies to
address this urban degeneration are enacted and implemented.

It is our view that since marriage by people from the Southern Harbour Region has no
direct bearing – marriage could conceptually attract, as well as repel population – on the
stock of vacant housing units, the variable in question must be discarded and the causes
for the extant stock of vacant housing must be looked for elsewhere.

While this study acknowledges that changes in household sizes and endeavours to
improve the type of residence do play an important role in the determination of the
permanently vacant housing stock, a greater emphasis is made on neighbourhood
attractiveness. A neighbourhood may be attractive for a host of reasons. It may be
economically attractive in terms of its close proximity to work-centres thereby making
living there more convenient. It may be aesthetically attractive: the availability of
amenities, low population density (with reference to available space and quiet) and
cleanliness of the region play an important role here. Lastly, it may be socially attractive.
As the old saying goes, “birds of a feather flock together”, and sociological agents might

27 “Housing Topic Paper Draft 2.3” by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (Feb 2002)
28 Op. Cit.: MEPA (Feb 2002) Executive Summary

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