So there’s a ton of countries that I’ve heard have had truly unaffordable housing for decades, like:
- The UK
- Ireland
- The Netherlands
And I’ve heard of a ton of countries where the cost of houses was until recently quite affordable where it’s also started getting worse:
- Germany
- Poland
- Czechia
- Hungary
- The US
- Australia
- Canada
- And I’m sure plenty others
- It seems to be a pan-Western bloc thing. Is the cause in all these countries the same?
- We’ve heard of success stories in cities like Vienna where much of the housing stock is municipally owned – but those cities have had it that way for decades. Would their system alleviate the current crisis if established in the aforementioned countries?
- What specific policies should I be demanding of our politicians to make housing affordable again? Is there any silver bullet? Has any country demonstrably managed to reverse this crisis yet?
Finland only has approximately 1000 willfully homeless people. I’d call that solving the crisis.
They also have a relatively small monocultural population and really cold winters.
True, but they could just decide to ignore homeless people like most of the US and other capitalist countries have, but they didn’t.
If they did ignore it, by spring there would be less homelessness.
How does having a monocultural population make housing easier?
It doesn’t, that’s just a bullshit, half baked “argument” people like to use when someone points out to them that Scandinavian nations have figured most of this shit out already.
one of the main reasons people are against state housing is because people with the wrong skin color might get it
I was going to let him say something obtusely racist and then roast him, but this works too.
EDIT: He did it anyway.
They literally can’t help themselves
It’s not always quite so clear-cut racist. Often it’s more about social norms and food choices. When everyone shares an insular culture, it’s easier to live near each other without having to be actively tolerant of people’s differences. And the social nets that ARE set up are more likely to work for people with a shared cultural background.
Shut uppppp. I live in a building that has a lot of immigrants (mostly students) and we get along just fine. That “oh I’m not racist, different cultures just can’t fit together” argument is bullshit, and even if people from different cultures don’t get along too well, it’s still better than them being outside when it’s -20 degrees.
Also as if people of the “same culture” aren’t equally as hard to live around.
Do you often find yourself having to be “actively tolerant” of people’s differences?
I’m sorry, food choices? Are you literally making a “but they smell” argument?
Hot take: blatant racism and veiled racism are equally bad reasons for a country to have poor housing policy.
I’m pretty sure ALL reasons are bad reasons? It doesn’t stop humans from generally being racist when it comes to housing. Which is a shame; you grow a lot more as a person when you live next to people from other cultures.
Right. So in other words, we should just implement Finland’s social housing model everywhere.
Yeah I was going to say Finland. Their public housing system should be an example for other nations to follow.
They won’t, of course…
That’s good to hear, although it’s kinda beyond the scope of my question. I’m asking more about how to stop prices rising when they’ve suddenly started quickly rising and people don’t know why.
But Finland only has like 2000 people. /s
As a Finn, please stop talking about us as some kind of utopia. We haven’t solved shit and our government is infested with fascists. I’m preeetty sure there are a lot more than that out there, unless a quarter of those 1000 happen to be around my morning commute.