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...