Routledge Revivals: Housing in Europe (1984)

Martin Wynn

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138083493
• eBook ISBN: 9781351621410
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

First published in 1984, this book presents a survey of housing problems in various European countries and how individual states have responded.

Each chapter begins by surveying the problem in each country since the Second World War, before going on to outline the roles fulfilled by national housing agencies and local authorities, as well as assessing the impact of housing policies on society and on the physical shape of cities. It considers whether housing policies have succeeded or failed and how the 'housing problem' has changed over time. Each chapter draws out lessons that can be learned for the future from each country's past handling of the problem.

This book will be a useful reference for those interested in housing, including planners, geographers, economists, sociologists or policy-makers.

Introduction

by Martin Wynn

This book sets out to examine housing problems, policies and products in selected European countries in the post-war era.¹ the nine countries studied in detail provide a fair cross-section of Europe's varying socio-political systems, two thirds of which may be described as market economies, and the remainder as centrally planned economies. Housing policy and production is, of course, closely linked to a number of socio-political-economic factors and relationships. As one author has recently commented, "housing manifests the political and economic climate found in a society as well as does any other facet of national experience."2

Despite cultural, political and economic differences, the tools adopted by European governments for intervening in the housing sector are not that diverse, although how they have been used in shaping housing production has varied considerably. Most of Europe faced acute housing deficits in the post-war, and the overall goal of meeting these shortages was common to most European governments until recently. Now, however, with the quantitative deficits gone or much diminished, qualitative deficiencies are emerging as a major focus for revised or new policies, involving more sophisticated instruments, often more difficult to administer.

At the end of the Second World War, as much as 22%3 of the housing stock was destroyed or damaged to such an extent as to be uninhabitable. National deficits were exacerbated by the return of troops and the unpreparedness of the building industry run down after several years of relative inactivity-to cope with production requirements. The search for new housing and employment opportunities resulted in massive country-city migrations, above all in Southern and Eastern Europe, where urban growth rates were three times comparable national figures over the period 1950-70. The need to invest in industry and infrastructure meant that housing deficits remained or worsened in the forties and fifties in many countries, and only by the late fifties were shortages beginning to be substantially reduced by increased production.

During this post-war era, housing policy in Western Europe tended to focus at first on the use of rent freezes as a means of protecting the consumer from rapid rent increases. Later, subsidies to house constructors were introduced to stimulate production, and the promotion of public and nonprofit housing agencies was encouraged in some countries. Meanwhile in Eastern Europe, the foundations of large scale production machinery in the construction industry were laid. In all Europe, land-use planning and environmental considerations were often overlooked in an era when the emphasis was on housing production figures rather than qualitative aspects.

By the 1960s, the construction industry was expanding rapidly and the 'boom' growth of major urban centres followed. Annual housing production figures attained new peaks, averaging eight dwellings per 1000 inhabitants in Europe in 1970. Many countries in both East and West markedly changed their housing policies in the sixties and seventies to bring about a more efficient and equitable use of resources. In Western Europe, a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Original Title
• Original Copyright
• Contents
• Editors' Acknowledgement
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• 1. INTRODUCTION
• 2. FRANCE
• 3. WEST GERMANY
• 4. GREAT BRITAIN
• 5. SPAIN
• 6. YUGOSLAVIA
• 7. DENMARK
• 8. EAST GERMANY
• 9. ITALY
• 10. PORTUGAL