Nordic Geographers Meeting
Tallinn and Tartu, 15-19 June 2015
CALL FOR PAPERS
THE CURRENT HOUSING CRISIS
Organisers: CRUSH – Critical Urban Sustainability Hub (www.crushproject.se)
This session wants to explore in what ways the Nordic and European housing markets are assuming a dysfunctional state, and what politics and policies can be implemented to solve this. In northern Europe, the acute housing shortage is a fact, and property developers maintain that the market is currently subject to economic difficulties since it is barely profitable to add new housing stock to the market. Thus not only are low-income families and individuals left with a decreasing number of housing options, but the shortage of (rental) accommodation is also becoming an obstacle for economic activity since migration is increasingly stalled. In short, the housing market appears to be characterized by a classic implementation deficit: everybody agrees that a healthy housing market is a vital component of the well-functioning of the city, but nobody appears to know how to achieve such an outcome through planning or other social processes. Meanwhile, tenants and their organisations have regularly pointed at acute housing market problems for young people, single parents, old people, and immigrants with a weak economy. The exploitation of these groups by so-called slumlords is a typical negative outcome of an unregulated housing market. The Swedish housing market in particular, once a prime example of housing regulation, is now amongst the most deregulated in Europe and this is one of the main reasons for the increased social, economic and geographical segregation between marginalized and gentrifying housing areas. Together with the lack of maintenance specifically of the Swedish Million Program housing stock from the so-called ‘record years’ 1961-1975, these conditions form huge challenges for a socially, economically and ecologically sustainable housing development.
This session welcomes papers that investigate the institutional conditions and policy options for housing governance at municipal and national levels in relation to society and citizens (property owners, the public housing sector, the real estate sector, tenant associations, social movements, lending institutions, architect and planning consultant firms, etc.). Case studies from all countries are welcome.
Papers can deal with one or more of the following topics:
1. the de- and re-regulation of housing markets
2. the changing social and cultural attitudes towards housing
3. economic, fiscal and financial challenges in housing market (affected by the global economic changes in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis)
4. the role of tenants and social movements in setting the agenda of the housing question
5. everyday local life and the current housing crisis
6. architecture, design, new forms of lifestyle and ecological buildings and public space.
7. the acute need for renovation of the Swedish housing stock from the record years 1961-1975
Abstracts of no more than 150 words should be submitted to Guy Baeten at [log in to unmask] The deadline is October, 15th.
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