Housing Big Idea
Robin
Created on September 25, 2024
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Transcript
Housing is about living
Common Weal's vision for a better housing system
What is a house?
Since the 1980s we are all used to houses as 'investments' or 'business opportunities'. It's almost as if we've lost sight of houses as somewhere to live. So our houses are built to make the maximum profit, not create the best life. Britain's houses are small. They're poorly built and badly insulated. They are plonked in fields often remote from their own community which leaves householders reliant on cars. They are built without infrastrucutre, without facilities, without the chance for economy, will little regard to how people can build communities. They seem to come in two kinds - 'affordable' and 'most of them'. We have lost sight of what housing is really about.
So what is a community?
Housing should be more than somewhere to survive and certainly more than somewhere to profit from. They ought to be somewhere to live, and for humans, living doesn't just mean being warm and dry. We're a social animal and our wellbeing relies on us being part of communities. Those communities are more than just people living in the same place if they are to nourish us. They are friends, neighbours, a support community, the place where we find much of our essential infrastructure, places we socilaise, shop, work, meet, share, learn and be together. When we get community right, it helps us to be our best.
Houses and the planet
Yet houses don't just contribute to the world, they also take from it. Houses are resource-intensive to build and many of the materials with which we build are particularly energy-intensive. Yet others are sustainable and actually cstore carbon and protect the environment. So which ones are we building from? Mostly the wrong ones. And worse, because we build poor quality, these houses don't last. Knocking down a building and replacing it with another at the rate we do is one of the biggest signs of just what is wrong with our housing system.
So why is this happening?
You can trace the roots of all of this back to the decision to start treating houses like a commercial asset more than homes for people. The idea of the 'housing ladder' was about creating the idea that a house is something you must always strive to make bigger, but not by building properly in the first place.