Housing affordability in the 21st-century requires a new way of understanding the concept. The concept is currently framed around household spending on housing costs. In the 21^stcentury, households' aspirations and housing outcomes of local residential environments are increasingly influenced by external labour and capital drivers at a range of scales (regional, national, global). Under such context, this paper suggests the concept of housing affordability should be advanced to understood with a relational view of the world. The relational view, underpinned by Giddens's Theory of Structuration, has the scope to capture how households' housing costs, linked to aspirations and housing outcomes across scales, making this more relevant to the 21^stcentury. Empirical evidence to demonstrate this has been drawn from a large-scale housing development project in the West Midlands of England. Increasing understanding of the concept helps formulate policies and planning practices for improving mechanisms to deliver better housing outcomes in an affordable and sustainable manner.

21 世纪的住房负担能力需要一种新的理解方式。这个概念目前围绕着家庭在住房成本上的支出而制定。在21^日世纪，家庭的愿望和当地居住环境的住房成果越来越多地受到外部劳动力和资本的驱动程序在尺度范围内（区域，国家，全球）的影响。在这样的背景下，本文建议将住房负担能力的概念推进到以世界的关系观来理解。关系视图，通过结构化的吉登斯的理论支撑，具有范围，捕捉家庭的住房成本，挂愿望和跨尺度的住房成果，如何使这个更相关的21^日世纪。证明这一点的经验证据来自英格兰西米德兰兹郡的一个大型住房开发项目。加深对这一概念的理解有助于制定政策和规划实践，以改进机制，以负担得起的和可持续的方式提供更好的住房成果。