Housing for Degrowth

by Anitra Nelson (Editor), François Schneider (Editor)

‘Degrowth’, a type of ‘postgrowth’, is becoming a strong political, practical and cultural movement for downscaling and transforming societies beyond capitalist growth and non-capitalist productivism to achieve global sustainability and satisfy everyone’s basic needs. This groundbreaking collection on housing for degrowth addresses key challenges of unaffordable, unsustainable and anti-social housing today, including going beyond struggles for a 'right to the city' to a 'right to metabolism', advocating refurbishment versus demolition, and revealing controversies within the degrowth movement on urbanisation, decentralisation and open localism. International case studies show how housing for degrowth is based on sufficiency and conviviality, living a ‘one planet lifestyle’ with a common ecological footprint. This book explores environmental, cultural and economic housing and planning issues from interdisciplinary perspectives such as urbanism, ecological economics, environmental justice, housing studies and policy, planning studies and policy, sustainability studies, political ecology, social change and degrowth. It will appeal to students and scholars across a wide range of disciplines.

Genres: Architecture

296 pages, Hardcover

Published August 13, 2018

Reviews

[Angie Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

While capitalist growth is about money, prices, and profits irrespective of social and environmental damage, degrowth is about a society in which human needs are satisfied while respecting finite planetary limits. The own your own home narrative runs like this: save, buy home,pay it off, it becomes nest egg or your asset. Everyone iterates this line and government policies are structured around this narrative as it has become the “sensible” practice. Simultaneously, tenants become second class citizens and homelessness increases even in wealthy countries. Housing for degrowth proposes reducing the total urban area; simplifying and redistributing access to housing; halting industrial urbanization; deurbanising, renovating dwellings to improve living conditions; sharing dwellings more, and developing low-level, low-impact, small-scale , decentralized, compact settlements. Simple and small houses are illegal in most current legislation. cohousing communities include several people 50-100 and can share cars, toys, tools, clothes, and services. When aim at building smaller dwellings, more awareness should be put on psychological needs such as parks and outdoor spaces to compensate for the lack of indoor spaces.

Degrowth is both an ideological strike against a faith in economic growth and a concrete demand to scale down society’s metabolism, transition to an economic system that is both just and less materially intensive. Degrowth is not about reducing consumption in one place only to increase it elsewhere.

This book appeals to a certain set of people with values such as saving our planet which is a collection of research articles.

[Naomi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great introduction to the theories and practices of degrowth. Highly recomend to anyone looking to learnore about sustainable living and alternatives to our commodity based housing system.