Chapers 1,2 and 22 of housing for degrowth
On the one hand, housing presumably intends to satisfy basic human needs, such as shelter, security and a context for sociability. On the other hand, it is a major sector of the economy. For instance, the construction sector accounts for around 9 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) and 18 million jobs within European Union (EU) countries, with an internal market estimated at €13 trillion and clear signifi cance for EU’s Europe 2020 plans ( EC 2016 ). Furthermore, the sheer amount of materials and energy used by the sector – indicated further below – is widely acknowledged.
The aspirational narrative of owning one’s own home, private ownership, has grown over recent decades even in countries where rental and social housing had become primary norms during the twentieth century.
The own-your-own-home narrative runs like this: save, buy your haven (your ‘castle’) and, as you pay it off, it becomes your ‘nest egg’, your asset. Parents, peers, builders, developers and fi nanciers iterate this line; it is a dominant ideal powering.
Large industrial, fi nancial and commercial players envisage more housing and larger houses built and sold as quickly as possible so they can make more money and remain competitive. As such, there is no incentive to build either more sustainably or for durability.
Yet finding affordable, environmentally sustainable and well-located housing either to purchase or to rent has become increasingly diffi cult in many cities and towns, especially in growing ‘global cities’, such as most national and state (provincial) capitals. Strong markets for housing tend to drive up prices, as apparent in certain Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ( OECD 2018a ) countries over the last decade
The aspirational narrative denigrates renting as a waste of money.
In the United Kingdom (UK) and Spain, for example, tenancy is not well regulated regarding key aspects of security and comfort such as length of tenancy, limits on rental charges and ability to alter dwellings.
That year a Guardian journalist also reviewed statistics across Europe to reveal 11,000,000 empty homes ‘enough to house all of the continent’s homeless twice over’
Indeed, household debt has risen during recent decades of neoliberal reforms that reduced social housing and other affordable housing policies, and increased private rental and home ownership in many countries.
‘Home’ is far from a haven, in fact a burden, for many households. Housing for growth is far from fulfi lling all people’s everyday needs for secure, modest and affordable
With housing for growth extending suburbs with poor local services and facilities, demanding higher environmental costs such as mandatory, excessive one-passenger private car use.
Average newly built house sizes in specifi c European countries were reported in the early 2010s: France – 112m 2 ; Denmark – 137m 2 , Germany – 109m 2 ; and Spain – 97m 2 (with Australia, US and Canada at 214m 2 , 201m 2 and 181m 2 respectively!
building products made up 20 percent (equivalent to Poland’s total – or half of Italy’s total – energy consumption).
residential building is ‘low hanging fruit’ for more sustainable building and home living practices, and that the mainstream housing sector is conservative (shy) with respect to using environmental designs, practices and materials
each year between 2000 and 2030, urban expansion globally has and will eradicate around one million hectares of cropland.
Housing for growth contravenes planetary limits of the regenerative capacity of ecosystems, even as it fails to meet everyone’s basic need for housing.
While offering a signifi cant use value as accommodation, owner-occupiers who work to repay large mortgage and other household debts associate their jobs with security of tenure in their homes, which can result in anxious and fearful conformity. They are less likely to leave a job or go on strike because the repercussions might immediately hurt their housing and ‘savings’; an anti-growth or anti-capitalist stand is contradictory, even anathema to their everyday practices. Mortgage debt drives economic growth and home ownership as a crucial cog in the wheel of capitalism.
Credit for mortgages is one of the safest forms of capital investment in countries where the mortgage contract obliges the mortgagor to repay the debt regardless of fl uctuations in its market value. Furthermore, mortgagors’ impacts on real estate markets, specifi cally their propensity to indebtedness, has a major infl uence on the level of house prices. Equally, high house prices magnify debt and risks for householders (and lenders).
As the cost of housing and expenses of household energy and water services and household indebtedness have risen, many have experienced greater dependence on incomes from permanent and full-time work at a point in history when insecure and precarious work conditions have become the norm. Indebtedness binds, and tends to make people beholden to, economic growth narratives that make job maintenance and creation dependent on economic prosperity (more growth).
that housing for degrowth is the way of the future and work for strategic change to mainstream such housing. In a world where environmental limits are constantly breached, conserving and effi ciently using environmental resources is crucial, pointing in a distinctly degrowth direction. Indeed, the next chapter offers a suite of housing for degrowth strategies that we might apply to create an environmentally and socially sustainable future for us all.
Housing for degrowth narratives François SchneiderHousing for degrowth narratives François Schneider
Housing for degrowth proposes reducing the total urban area; simplifying and redistributing access to housing; halting industrial urbanisation; deurbanising and renaturalising areas; renovating dwellings to improve living conditions; sharing dwellings more; and developing low-level, low-impact, small-scale, decent
Politicians and citizens seem afraid that there is no societal alternative to the one we live in despite capitalism’s multiple crises, so they stick to what they know, growth policies. When afraid, citizens sometimes end up voting extreme right. To open their minds and options, and to reduce their fears, they need to realise that alternative narratives outside the growth paradigm exist
Degrowth advocates neither perceive dwellings as financial investments nor as objects of conspicuous consumption and status symbols but, rather, as places to fulfil important social needs and basic human rights, as recognised by the United Nations ( UN 2014 ). Housing provides a public service, as do health and education sectors. Housing can be provided by owner builders, cooperatives and municipalities, understood as an element of social networking, conviviality, good universal accessibility and as a synergy of ‘satisfi ers’
growth of housing capacity in absolute terms is socially unnecessary given that there is excessive unused stock. Empirical data shows that for each household member there is more than 40 square metres of average useful fl oor area in Europe ( Kees and Haffner 2010 , 51) so, rather than more urbanisation, the housing crisis can be solved by re-allocating housing where people need it or, in protected areas, ‘de-urbanisation’ and redistributing empty or hardly used fl ats (the numerous secondary houses) to people who need a safe living space.
Divesting from housing projects with heavy environmental and social impacts could liberate resources for the creation of small-scale socio-ecological projects. Such practices could eliminate dependence on debt and economic growth, while generating meaningful jobs.
In most countries and cities today, access to social rent schemes is too limited to satisfy all those in need and waiting lists are very long. In some countries, like Spain or Greece, social housing is virtually non-existent, while in other countries, such as the Netherlands, it is still quite considerable, notwithstanding recent cuts.
include limits to sub-letting rooms at high nightly rates to tourists – such as with Airbnb, which is often misconceived as social sharing – because such practices disfavour permanent tenants paying inexpensive rental
Another solution for housing justice is requisition, as demanded by many associations defending the right for housing
Olsen et al. and Cattaneo are clear: occupying and, as necessary, repairing appropriate buildings can adequately satisfy housing needs.
The multi-faceted movement for simplicity in housing includes advocacy for tiny houses. Creating smaller but optimal dwellings is an innovation in the context of designs for so-called ‘ecological’ homes, which are most often relatively large.
The demand for housing is reduced through the introduction and extension of effi ciency, i.e. using each square metre of built space more effi ciently, reusing urbanised land and reusing erstwhile construction ‘waste’
Cohousing communities are a constructive alternative to the growing atomisation and loneliness of single-person households in large cities
Unfortunately, most national and city legislation does not account for communal ownership. Housing for degrowth implies that sharing is allowed and even commonplace in national and local jurisdictions. House sharing might be encouraged by progressively taxing dwelling space per capita above a maximum ( Fack et al. 2011 ). Current laws usually specify a maximum rate of occupancy, whereas degrowth policies would apply a minimum rate of occupancy. Another policy proposal is to subsidise or offer tax reductions for house and goods sharing and to offer hospitality to homeless people
Urban areas can be limited and managed in more socially and ecologically benefi cial ways: reversing urbanisation of farming and wildlife zones that occurs with urban sprawl; rezoning urbanised (and ‘urbanisable’) land to agricultural or natural zones to support more compact ways of residing (distinct from ‘masshousing’); and sustainable transportation schemes. Land use planning can restrict urbanisation outside public transport nodes, bring back nature into the city and keep neighbourhoods compact
The degrowth pathway means drastic reductions of social inequality in housing, and deconstructing aspirations for luxury housing based on social comparison or fi nancial investments, both supported by societal and individual acknowledgements that needs are best served when houses are perceived as places fulfi lling important social functions, as elements of social networks and nests of conviviality. Frugal effi ciencies based on better utilisation of existing housing capacity by means of sharing and a more effi cient use of built space have been discussed. Alternative banking policies, such as higher reserve rates, might limit banks’ capacity to offer mortgages and negatively impact on demand to increase the availability of housing through re-purposing, reusing erstwhile vacant houses and refurbishing urbanised land. In short, both social inequity and ecological impacts of housing reduce with economic degrowth
Summary and research futures for housing for degrowth Anitra Nelson and François Schneider
Class notes
- renovate, innovate and sharing more
- borrowin less money, getting less indebte
- Anitra and Francouois : empty spaces .- second residences or balance sheets + right to share
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