By Staff, Red Pepper, Red Pepper
Around the world, new municipal movements are transforming the way we provide – and think about – housing. From campaigning against evictions to innovative forms of public housing to requisitioning empty properties and engaging many more people in decisions about how and where we live, municipal projects are responding to the global housing crisis, locally.
By Saki Bailey, Shareable
The East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative is an impressive burgeoning commons legal institution that's aimed at the decommodification of housing.
By Chuck Collins, YES! magazine
Municipalities should move quickly to enact high-end real estate transfer taxes, requirements for the disclosure of beneficial ownership, and regulations aimed at the disruptive impact absentee owner-investors are having on our cities.
By Saki Bailey, Shareable
These three commons legal institutions exemplifies, in different ways, a central feature of the commons as described in the previous piece: namely, decommodifying access to a common good by taking homes permanently off of the speculative market
By Chuck Collins, Inequality.org
This is not the previous generation’s gentrification. The housing crisis in many of our urban areas is not the result of normal real estate market forces. Local gentrification cycles have been “supercharged” by the fact that many cities are now a global destination to park investment capital.
By Chris Winters, YES! magazine
In choosing to live in community—sharing not just a house, but their lives with each other—they’ve defined a new American Dream. They hope others will follow their model, if not by making the same choice, then by being willing to look beyond traditional boundaries.
By Julie Gilgoff, Sustainable Economies Law Center
While billion dollar development companies eat up affordable housing units throughout the Bay Area, dedicated teams of organizers, nonprofit service providers, community development corporations, and others fight a relentless battle along side and on behalf of those at threat of displacement
By Amanda Tattersall, The Conversation
Almost every global city has a similar dynamic – a battle between the finance capital that seeks to make money from the city and the needs of the residents who seek to make the city their home. Rarely do we see residents successfully push back against the power of finance capital. But for those wanting to know how this can be done, look to Barcelona.
By Nick Dowson, Red Pepper
In the UK, only around 10 per cent of new homes are self-built. But with the housing shortage increasingly acute, many groups and local authorities around the country are looking to community self-build as a potential solution. Can it deliver?
By Sarah van Gelder, YES! magazine
Berlin’s creative culture is under tremendous pressure as real estate speculators from around the globe buy up apartment buildings. But a culture of resistance and grassroots revitalization is putting a brake on gentrification, helping to protect the residents’ right to their city.