The hottest political issue European politicians aren’t talking about
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The Continent’s housing crisis has gone from being a slow burn to a four-alarm fire — but some countries are handling it better than others.

The Continent’s housing crisis has gone from being a slow burn to a four-alarm fire — but some countries are handling it better than others.

One of Europe’s long-simmering political frustrations is suddenly boiling over.

From Lisbon to Łódź, voters are angry about the lack of affordable housing. Anti-immigrant riots broke out in Dublin last fall, fueled in part by claims that the Irish capital’s limited public housing was being given to foreigners. Meanwhile, in cities like Lisbon, Amsterdam and Milan, thousands of protesters have taken to the streets to denounce the lack of affordable homes.

In a poll ahead of last week’s far-right surge in the European Parliament election, the Continent’s mayors listed housing as one of the most important issues facing their constituencies.

  • DominusOfMegadeusEnglish
    6•5 months ago

    I don’t see how this addresses the AIRBNB problem, or the corporations that are rapidly buying up all analogous available housing stock in order to rent it out.

    • @Wanderer@lemm.eeEnglish
      -3•5 months ago

      Ultimately it is a supply and demand issue.

      Supply is artificial restricted because no one will build because either they simply can’t or the value is going up too much that there is no point (which can be solved) and population is increasing.

      If you built a shit load of homes there would be both more houses to rent/buy and more Airbnb options. Honestly the airbnb option in a lot of places is a problem because large hotel can’t be built.

      There are 827,557 residential homes in Barcelona. There are 10,101 airbnb properties. That’s about 1.2%.

      What you think happens if Barcelona builds another 100,000 houses/hotels?

      • @dudenas@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1•5 months ago

        You could say it is a supply and demand question in a very limited sense. Limited by space. There is no shortage of buildable areas in general, for example, around the cities, but there is shortage of housing in central and attractive places. Releasing building regulations would simply ruin existing quality and turn everything into terrible dense and faceless outskirts we all know. Then the demand would shift elsewhere, to remaining fewer good places, making demand even harsher.

        Home ownership is essential for identity of places, so the solution is exactly the opposite: regulate building and secure rights to own your home.

        • @Wanderer@lemm.eeEnglish
          1•5 months ago

          If there is a shortage of housing what do you actually propose to make more housing?

          You can’t possibly think 1% of housing will solve this problem never mind for a generation even for short term it won’t solve anything.

      • @Clent@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1•5 months ago

        100k hours and hotels is going to hit where exactly? And that 10-50 billion dollars of investment is funded by what exactly? Magical money printing machine?

          • @Clent@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1•5 months ago

            No one is going to loan an industry 20% of its yearly revenue.

            I’m beginning to suspect you don’t have an mba.

            • @Wanderer@lemm.eeEnglish
              -1•5 months ago

              You’re an idiot. You’re not going to build that much in 1 year.

              If you did have that much work being done in Barcelona money would flood in from elsewhere also. Especially the EU.

              • @Clent@lemmy.worldEnglish
                1•5 months ago

                Congrats you lose the argument by resorting to personal attacks.

                I never said it would be built in a year so it would appear the idiot is you.