Through the years, affordable housing has been transformed by developers' marketing and sales strategies, but its thrust has been about the "Malaysian Dream".
Affordability means homes that meets buyers' financial means, usually 30 per cent of gross household income. Apart from choice locations, the homes should have primary living needs: electricity and water supply, waste disposal systems, schools, Internet coverage and access to a commercial hub for other wants and services.
In older days, telephone lines and bus or taxi services were obligatory, but 24 years into the 21st century, these amenities seem antiquated, phased out by smartphone apps and a liberal private vehicle ownership policy.
Pursuers of the Malaysian Dream participate in this race by becoming the target market for housing developers and realtors, with visions of sophisticated community living.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim advocates for affordable housing that respects the "humane" ideal of prioritising well-being, dignity and quality of life. However, this era's "affordable" housing takes a different dimension. Depending on build and design, modern suburban homes command prices of RM225,000 to RM500,000.
For Malaysians eyeing homes that fit their lifestyles, these prices are "affordable", particularly if it's sweetened with a swimming pool, park, playground, security and professional management.
However, there's a dimension of affordable housing that's losing traction: homes for the bottom 40 per cent of earners (the B40s) who also want the Malaysian Dream. There was a time when a low-cost unit hovered around RM25,000 to RM35,000 but inflation and attitudes have made construction of such homes' repellent to developers.
That is unless the developers are "strong-armed" into building pigeonhole flats if they are to acquire government land to build the next mega project. When the houses do get built, the distribution is plagued with supply and demand mismatches, sparking a competition for limited units indifferently located, bereft of amenities and structurally defective.
To the B40s, affordable housing means living in their ancestral homes or cooped up in tiny flats dogged by social problems and crime. They are considered lucky though: those who can't even afford a low-cost unit squat in slums or idle land, grabbing cheap rentals or the next best and only option: sleeping on the streets.
Obviously, the government must persuade developers to build more mixed housing offset by lesser taxes, broader subsidies and innovative construction techniques. If ever a vaunted government-private partnership is needed, it's in low-cost housing at locales that befit the Malaysian Dream.