Abstract

Rapid urbanization poses a significant challenge to accommodating the poor, particularly in developing countries during the urbanization. To address this issue, affordable housing has become the agenda for many governments in a bid to improve the living condition of low income households. Affordable housing usually refers to a housing that is affordable to specified eligible households whose income is not adequate to access appropriate housing in the market. However, there is evidence to show that affordable housing is not adequately supported to achieve sustainable goals. Whereas sustainability is a basis of housing affordability by less spending on energy bills, transportation and health care. This study aims to conceptually revise the factors of achieving sustainable affordable housing (SAH) with systematic approach in developing countries. The first step to achieve SAH is identifying Critical Success Factors (CSF). CSFs are those few key areas, which if available, would guarantee the success of an organization or a project and if not taken serious, might lead to failure of a project. In this regard, this study aims to conceptually revise the factors of achieving SAH with systematic approach in developing countries. Methodology The present paper is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive AND analytical in terms of method. In the first step, the content analysis method was used to conceptualize and identify success factors. 32 documents were selected, which were selected from Science Direct, Springer, Taylor Francis and Google Scholar. The data was analysed using NVivo version 10 software package. The document analysis findings were converted to a questionnaire to identify the level of criticality of the SFs. Initially, the questionnaire was tested using a pilot survey to test the validity, fitness, and comprehensiveness of the SFs. After confirming, "success criteria for achieving sustainable housing" was added to the main questionnaire and the respondents were asked to score the criticality using a 5-point Likert scale from 1 (not important) to 5 (very important). The questionnaires were sent to all individuals who had conducted research in reputable scientific journals in the field of affordable housing or sustainable housing, provided their email was available. Of the 490 copies of the questionnaire sent, 106 copies were returned, but only 102 were considered usable based on the completeness of the questionnaire. Then The IBM Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used in carrying out the statistical analyses. In this context, one sample t-test was used to compare the average of factors, the Normalization function in order to standardize and identify the critical factors and Path Analysis in order to determine the direct and indirect effects of the indicators and also to identify the main dimension in explaining the sustainable housing model. Results and Discussion The findings showed that from the preliminary list of 35 key sustainability indicators of affordable housing that were identified through an extensive literature review, 23 CSFs were finally highlighted. "Political will and commitment to affordable housing", "Formulation of sound housing market policies", "Adequate Budget and Supply", "Providing Housing Subsidies for Low-Income Households " and "Good Governance" are five factors that have the highest criticality according to experts in different countries. The results of this study also demonstrated that among the dimensions of sustainability, the institutional /managerial dimension, due to its direct and indirect relationship with other aspects, has generally the main priority in explaining the SAH model. Conclusion Identifying critical success factors plays a fundamental role in the realization of sustainable affordable housing. In this way, having a comprehensive approach and systematic approach is necessary. The institutional /managerial dimension, due to strong multilateral relationship with other aspects, has the main priority in explaining the SAH model. Therefore, governments need to provide the necessary conditions for the establishment of sustainable housing governance in order to address the crisis of housing management in developing countries by focusing on the role of local governments. Keywords: Affordable Housing, Housing Sustainability, Developing Countries, Local government.