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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/07/europe-financial-sector-house-prices-politics>
"“The housing crisis is now as big a threat to the EU as Russia,” Jaume
Collboni, the mayor of Barcelona, recently declared. “We’re running the risk of
having the working and middle classes conclude that their democracies are
incapable of solving their biggest problem.”
It is not hard to see where Collboni is coming from. From Dublin to Milan,
residents routinely find half of their incomes swallowed up by rent, and home
ownership is unthinkable for most. Major cities are witnessing spiralling house
prices and some have jaw-dropping year-on-year median rent increases of more
than 10%. People are being pushed into ever more precarious and cramped
conditions and homelessness is rapidly rising.
As Collboni asserts, housing lies at the heart of surging political
disfranchisement across mainland Europe. The crisis is fuelling the far right –
linked, for example, to the support for Alternative für Deutschland in Germany
and the recent victory of the Dutch anti-Islam Freedom party. Housing has
become a primary engine of inequality, reinforcing divisions between the
asset-haves and have-nots and disproportionately affecting minority groups. Far
from offering security and safety, for many in Europe housing is now a primary
cause of suffering and despair.
But not everyone is suffering. At the same time it is robbing normal people of
a comfortable and dignified life, the housing crisis is lining the pockets of a
small number of individuals and institutions. Across Europe in recent decades
the same story has unfolded, albeit in very different ways: power has shifted
to those who profit from housing, and away from those who live in it."
We also have a serious housing affordability issue in Australia.
Cheers,
Andrew
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
