Public action for housing: Reflections on trends in global housing unaffordability in large cities

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Housing costs in relation to incomes have been increasing in many of the world's largest cities for decades. For urban residents at the lower end of urban income distributions, reasonably 'decent' housing providing basic health and space standards has become increasingly unaffordable. This leads to downward trends in their overall welfare as they are forced to make ever more difficult trade-offs between housing needs and other essential consumption costs such as food, water, heating and transport to work. The proportion of affected city residents has also increased with housing becoming unaffordable for those in income bands previously little affected. These are worldwide trends in large cities in both the so-called Global North and Global South. This paper reflects on the causes and outcomes of the housing unaffordability crisis. It begins by arguing that if even very basic housing standards are met, there is still a structural global urban housing dilemma, best understood not as a problem of supply but of lack of (monetary) demand as typical incomes from a vast array of urban employment are insufficient to cover basic housing costs. The remainder of the paper discusses the links between the negative trends evident in housing affordability and global shifts in the nature of capitalism and government policies from the end of the nineteenth century.