Housing crisis: The hottest political issue European politicians aren’t talking about
Housing crisis: The hottest political issue European politicians aren’t talking about
The Continent’s housing crisis has gone from being a slow burn to a four-alarm fire — but some countries are handling it better than others.
The Continent's housing crisis has gone from being a slow burn to a four-alarm fire — but some countries are handling it better than others.
One of Europe’s long-simmering political frustrations is suddenly boiling over.
From Lisbon to Łódź, voters are angry about the lack of affordable housing. Anti-immigrant riots broke out in Dublin last fall, fueled in part by claims that the Irish capital’s limited public housing was being given to foreigners. Meanwhile, in cities like Lisbon, Amsterdam and Milan, thousands of protesters have taken to the streets to denounce the lack of affordable homes.
In a poll ahead of last week’s far-right surge in the European Parliament election, the Continent’s mayors listed housing as one of the most important issues facing their constituencies.
In many cities, politicians have decided that it's better to have tourists than people living there permanently, so they simply ignore the fact that every house is today an Airbnb (legal or else) and that any new homes being built are simply unaffordable because they aim to be purchased by Investors to speculate.
Is housing a basic right in your country ? I believe it should be.
It's not. Not in the U.S. Not at all. Not even slightly.
Seems more general an issue with wealth distribution
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In a poll ahead of last week’s far-right surge in the European Parliament election, the Continent’s mayors listed housing as one of the most important issues facing their constituencies.
Cash-strapped municipal councils that had previously built housing gave up on new construction and sold off existing stock — but the private sector failed to pick up the slack.
The housing associations are not run for profit and two-thirds of the rent collected goes into a national building fund, which has been used since 1967 to finance the construction of new homes and the refurbishment of existing stock.
Bent Madsen, CEO of the Danish Federation of Non-Profit Housing Providers, said that even though about a quarter of the dwellings were assigned to vulnerable groups — like single families or refugees — anyone could apply for a home, regardless of income.
For publicly owned homes built after 2000, rent per person per square meter is 40 percent cheaper than market prices, according to data analyzed by the Danish Federation of Non-Profit Housing Providers.
Rebecca Omoregie, vice director of Wohnbaugenossenschaften Schweiz, an association of nonprofit housing developers, said that the co-ops were democratically organized, with all residents having the same rights and say regarding the buildings’ management.
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Nobody seems to talk about in the US either, one of the most basic human rights is in crisis and it’s just business as usual.
This website won't like this. But it's a failing of the market and it could be fixed by capitalism.
Removing restrictions on housing density, and where houses can be built and adding a Land value tax would help things. Also obviously less immigration would solve the demand side of the equation. I think countries should stop focusing on the ever increasing growth of countries and we should focus more on things like free time.
But really the solution to this is A build a new city or B destroy large parts of a city that were built when the city size was 10% it size and built more density, modern building standards, public transport etc.
But the boomer generation don't give a fuck about the next generations so probably have to wait for them to die.
I don't see how this addresses the AIRBNB problem, or the corporations that are rapidly buying up all
analogousavailable housing stock in order to rent it out.Ultimately it is a supply and demand issue.
Supply is artificial restricted because no one will build because either they simply can't or the value is going up too much that there is no point (which can be solved) and population is increasing.
If you built a shit load of homes there would be both more houses to rent/buy and more Airbnb options. Honestly the airbnb option in a lot of places is a problem because large hotel can't be built.
There are 827,557 residential homes in Barcelona. There are 10,101 airbnb properties. That's about 1.2%.
What you think happens if Barcelona builds another 100,000 houses/hotels?
Ah yes, let's make it even more of a hell to live in cities by paving over anything green and making people live like livestock in tiny cages. That will surely solve the problem!
Oh, and really it's the immigrants' fault! They're the ones buying up all of the houses with cash to later rent them as AirBnBs!
I didn't say any of that.
Airbnb is 1% of the stock having been formed in 2007. How much do you think immigration has increased by since 2007? Less than 1% of the population?
You really think freeing up 1% of housing stock is going to magically mean everyone that wants to buy a house now suddenly can?