United Nations reports indicate that approximately one-third of the global population faces some form of housing shortage. Most existing solutions have been temporary rather than fundamental, leading to a lack of coordination across various planning levels and a lack of transparency regarding the roles of involved institutions. A primary cause of this global housing challenge is the absence of a cohesive framework comprising all sectors of the housing planning system—one that clearly defines the mechanisms of its components and provides a comprehensive view of the entire planning system.

This research aims to analyze the concept and identify indicators of a housing planning system and to propose a process and content-based model. Using an inductive part-to-whole approach, the study seeks to bring transparency to housing planning as a distinct component of urban policymaking. By leveraging credible articles from Scopus and Web of Science databases alongside global best practices, this work is categorized as applied and archival research.

The findings include a 72-indicator system for the housing planning system in its broad global sense (e.g., economic indicators like the housing-price-to-income ratio, or institutional indicators like the level of coordination from national to local levels). Additionally, it presents a process and content model consisting of three levels: the outer layer (macro theories and contextual factors), the planning process (legal structure, governance, finance, and demand-supply management), and the measurement and evaluation level (encompassing housing quality and process assessment), clearly defining the internal relationships between these components.