Assemble's Turner prize win: a sign of our deeply embedded housing crisis. For the first, though hopefully not the last time, I’m stood on a Turner prize winning art work.
Tucked behind a main road leading to Toxteth, south Liverpool, a plot of just over 200 houses stands. Until 2011, the houses were mostly derelict and empty. ‘In St Ives, we’re facing the financial cleansing of the town’s people’ “Doesn’t that look wonderful, that little glimpse you can see?
Doesn’t that look gorgeous?” Linda Taylor is marching down a narrow cobbled street towards the harbour in the picture-postcard Cornish town of St Ives. She pauses at the end of the street to look across the water. Boats bob in the sunshine, children dig in the sand and visitors jostle along the front, on what feels like the first day of summer. It is in every way a vision of the idyllic seaside resort. Next month St Ives will vote in a referendum to approve a neighbourhood plan. If the plan is approved, there will be a legal requirement to ensure that all new housing in the area is for principal residence., with the owners’ status checked against the electoral roll and doctors’ registers. It’s the inequality, stupid. Homes should be lived in, not traded. Throughout the country, on any given night, some streets are darker than others, with no inhabitants to make the slightest noise.
Sicilian Town Tells Outsiders: Take Our Homes. Please. Photo GANGI, Sicily — Looking for a home?
One Sicilian town is making an offer that is hard to refuse: It is giving away houses. Italy’s rural villages are dying out. The first time I visit Civita di Bagnoreggio is on Christmas Eve.
I park the car at the end of a country road and look up. The ancient village, built by the Etruscans, is perched atop a grassy pinnacle, overlooking a deep chasm. The canyon cuts across the Tiber Valley, leaving the town an island. A single metal catwalk leads to the hamlet — the only means of connection to the “mainland.” The original bridge, carved out of the rock, was destroyed in World War II. I feel dizzy as I make my way along the pathway. Who will breathe life back into Europe's dying villages?
Europe’s countryside is dotted with quaint, postcard-perfect small towns and villages.
These are steeped in history – their strong stone buildings and breathtaking squares capture the essence and culture of the continent. Some of them have been inhabited for hundreds of years – but today, the future for many of them is bleak. There has been a flight of populations from the countryside to urban centres during the past century. The twin attractions of big cities – mass industrialisation and easy access to jobs – have taken their toll on rural existence. Many architectural gems in these country towns and villages – and the lifestyles that they represnted – are being forgotten and cast aside, as time and technology speed past them toward a new, urban future. Worse lies ahead: in coming decades, rural depopulation is set to accelerate. The process creates a vicious downward spiral of further abandonment, which becomes increasingly difficult to combat. Untapped potential. "La bocca della verita" (chairecoop) version FR. Les squats au coeur des politiques publiques.
À la marge ?
Si les squats sont régulièrement associés à l’idée de marginalité, cette dernière peut mener à de mauvaises interprétations. Les squats sont en effet au cœur des villes et des politiques publiques, et parler de marge a également tendance à écraser les personnes qui vivent en squat, présentées comme démunies, alors que les squats permettent de développer de vraies capacités de résistance et d’invention. Les squats mêlent également confusément la figure du coupable et de la victime, puisque les squatteurs vivent dans l’illégalité, et sont en même temps en situation de vulnérabilité socio-économique et juridique. Lieux de vie à part entière, ce sont non seulement des alternatives à la rue, quand l’État n’est pas capable de donner un toit, mais également des modes de vie alternatifs qu’il convient de repolitiser.
Entre problème et solution : visibilité et invisibilité des squats Inaction publique et politique de l’urgence. Les coopératives d’habitants, des outils pour l’abondance, au service du logement abordable. Job und Wohnen: Das Comeback der Werkswohnung. BerlinDie Wirtschaft reagiert auf die Wohnungskrise.
„Es ist ein kleiner Trend, aber ein Trend“, beobachtet Arnt von Bodelschwingh, Leiter des Berliner Forschungsinstituts Regiokontext. Das Thema betrieblich vermittelter oder gestellter Wohnungen für die eigenen Mitarbeiter erlebe eine Renaissance ¬– vor allem in Regionen mit deutlich angespannten Wohnungsmärkten. Das liegt vor allem daran, dass der Wettbewerb um die besten Mitarbeiter für die Unternehmen härter geworden ist. Ob Mitarbeiter eine bezahlbare Wohnung im Umkreis ihres Arbeitsplatzes finden, entscheidet immer mehr auch über die Zukunftsfähigkeit der Betriebe. „Die Wirtschaft setzt auf Unternehmensattraktivität durch Wohnungsbau“, sagte von Bodelschwingh, der am Montag in Berlin eine Studie über das „Comeback der alten Werkswohnung“ vorlegte. Nur so könne es gelingen, so von Bodelschwingh, private und öffentliche Arbeitgeber zum Mitarbeiter-Wohnungsbau zu motivieren.
"L'art de refaire son intérieur". Chairecoop. (version FR)