Economic and demographic stagnation, housing and housing policy

Abstract

Abstract This article investigates how housing and housing policy in the Netherlands developed in a period of economic and demographic stagnation (1974–1984). It is argued that there have been some policy adjustments, but that the housing sector has been able to hold its own reasonably well in the political arena. Public spending on housing as a percentage of the national budget since 1978 has risen. This is the result of the strong position of the interest groups in the non‐profit rent sector and — above all ‐of reasons situated outside housing itself: unemployment in the building trade, the relation between rent policy and incomes policy and the economic importance of urban restructuring processes. Housing held its own for non‐housing reasons.