Social Housing

Access to affordable housing

The problem of access to affordable housing for the economically less privileged part of the urban population is universal to all cities. However, the scale and the configuration of the problem varies considerably, and so does the way it is perceived by politicians, municipal authorities, and inhabitants.

The issue of affordability of housing is also adressed in a variety of ways ranging from laisser-faire policies to more or less elaborate systems of allocation of affordable dwellings. This result in a great diversity of outcomes regarding how housing for not-so-rich urbanites is actually shaped (derelict inner city districts, 'exile' to high-rise suburbs, social housing estates spread out over the city, informal, quasi- or outright slums etc.)

Changes in thinking and policies regarding the urban (aka "New Metropolitan Mainstream") add complexity to the issue, as affordable housing is either politically prioritized, or on the contrary, must make way for developments deemed more important (e.g. encouraging accomodation for business people, wealthy tourists or 'creatives'). And last but not least, 'the crisis' has left its mark, but there again, nowhere in the same way.

We therefore need to hear from all participatants in the NMM project how this issue of access to affordable housing looks like, on the grounds, and in the economy and politics, in their respective cities.