International Journal of Housing Policy

ISSN: 1949-1247 (Print) 1949-1255 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/reuj20

A Review of "Sustainable communities and urban

housing: a comparative European perspective",
Edited by Montserrat Pareja-Eastaway and Nessa
Winston

David P. Varady

To cite this article: David P. Varady (2017) A Review of "Sustainable communities and
urban housing: a comparative European perspective", Edited by Montserrat Pareja-
Eastaway and Nessa Winston, International Journal of Housing Policy, 17:4, 608-611, DOI:
10.1080/19491247.2017.1372958

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19491247.2017.1372958

Published online: 18 Sep 2017.

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 608 Book Reviews

Importantly then, this book serves as a critical lesson in paying attention and con-
sidering historical alternative narratives in planning, and the ways in which we
might seek to regain the public good in planning practice.

Sophie Elsmore
Department of Urban, Leisure and Environment Studies,
London South Bank University, UK
Email:elsmores@lsbu.ac.uk
Ó 2017 Sophie Elsmore
https://doi.org/10.1080/19491247.2017.1377454
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Sustainable communities and urban housing: a comparative European

perspective, Edited by Montserrat Pareja-Eastaway and Nessa Winston, London and
New York, Routledge, 2017, 266 pp., £110.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-1-138-91148-2

Historically, the term ‘sustainable development’ has been confined to environmen-

tal issues, but recently policy-makers have tried to include economic and social per-
spectives as well. To what extent have practitioners been successful in
encompassing all three perspectives? What are the lessons for future policies?
Sustainable Communities and Urban Housing, edited by Monsterrat Pareja-
Eastaway and Nessa Winston, does a terrific job in highlighting the trade-offs
among the three perspectives. The book covers 11 European countries with all four
types of welfare regimes – social democratic, liberal, southern European, and east-
ern European post-socialist – with very different housing markets and housing
policies.
Each chapter has a similar format: background on key environmental, economic
and social issues; information on the housing system and housing production; sus-
tainable housing/community policies; main barriers to and drivers of sustainable
development; and an analysis of one issue of key significance to that particular
nation. The use of a common framework makes this an easy read and an invaluable
resource for information on housing issues in these 11 countries.
Nessa Winston recommends that Irish cities achieve greater diversification of
the housing stock and more social mixing by requiring greater use of the Irish Hous-
ing Agency’s Part V program. Originally, 20% of land zoned for residential devel-
opment had to be set aside to meet any identified need for social and affordable
housing, but, in response to builders’ objections, the program’s mixing component
was watered down. The long-term viability of mixed neighbourhoods will, how-
ever, also require high quality neighbourhoods (including good schools) in order to
insure that city and apartment communities are not merely stepping stones for
 International Journal of Housing Policy 609

middle-income families relocating to detached/semi-detached dwellings in the sub-

urbs and beyond.
Monsterrat Pareja-Eastaway and Maria-Teresa Sanchez-Martinez note that the
Spanish government’s pro-speculation approach has worked against sustainability
and, instead, has created vacant ghost housing. To create viable, compact, and
diverse central cities, Spanish city planners need to invoke the density of Spain’s
cities of the past. They also need to alter the Spanish mind set away from
speculation.
Ingra-Bitt Werner reports on an innovative, but still unproven Stockholm pro-
gram to sell municipally owned properties to tenant associations for cooperative
ownership. Unfortunately, the chapter provides no evidence that the program
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resulted in greater social mixing, decreased social segregation, or greater social sta-
bility. More specifically the program did not reduce crime, and those renters who
became homeowners, did not become more responsible, involved citizens.
Eli Stoa’s case study of the Brøset revitalisation project in Trondheim, Norway
proved disappointing. The project sought to achieve a social mix by attracting dif-
ferent household types and attempting to involve residents in the planning process.
Unfortunately, eight years after the project was approved, construction had not
begun. Apparently, the level of social mixing proposed by planners was too high,
thereby discouraging developers and prospective tenants/owners.
Jacob Larsen and colleagues criticise Denmark’s social housing retrofitting pro-
grams because of the lack of attention given to the behaviour of consumers, renters,
and home owners. Contrary to the expectations, retrofitting led to increased energy
consumption through a ‘rebound effect’ – when residents raise thermostat settings
in buildings that were made more energy efficient. Larsen’s most relevant study is
Sonderborg’s ProjectZero, which combined retrofitting buildings and energy meas-
ures with extensive outreach, and succeeded in increasing residents’ interest in
reducing energy consumption.
Reinout Kleinhans questions the prospects for citizen-led initiatives like com-
munity enterprises (CEs) in the Netherlands, and by implication, other European
social democratic welfare states. The 14 new CEs that he studied (many of which
rented out office/work space) found it problematic to operate without ongoing pub-
lic subsidies and also found it difficult to recruit and keep volunteers.
Glen Bramley’s own UK ‘City Form’ research provides limited support for
social mixing as part of a community sustainability strategy. He observes that mix-
ing socio-economic and ethnic groups ‘could be negative…’ (p. 152) – a conclusion
supported by earlier social science research. His second conclusion – that social
capital has a positive effect on general well-being – implies that efforts to promote
social capital could create happier communities. It is unclear, however, how plan-
ners can raise social capital levels in communities that lack it.
Focusing on Germany, Deilmann and Effenberger argue that the use of binding
targets (e.g. the Frieburg Charter) has helped German local officials in a number of
 610 Book Reviews

cities to make progress in incorporating all three goals – economic, social, environ-
ment – into community sustainability strategies. But nevertheless, German planners
face two formidable challenges, affordability and availability. Large cities like Ber-
lin are experiencing a growing affordability problem being especially attractive to
young, highly educated adults, while restrictive land policies limit land for develop-
ment thereby elevating housing prices. Additionally, high levels of immigration
from the Global South have made it even more difficult. More than one million
migrants and asylum seekers arrived in Germany in 2015. Deilmann and Effen-
berger assert that housing organisations have gained much ‘experience with integra-
tion and how to avoid stigmatization’ (p. 240), but they provide few details about
these programs. Consequently, it is impossible to see what lessons Germany can
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offer regarding immigrant integration for cities elsewhere in Europe.

Margrit Hugentobler observes that Switzerland’s unique democratic decision-
making, including citizen initiatives for new programs and referenda on existing
ones, supports all three pillars of sustainability. For example, ‘More than Housing,’
a 2007 Zurich neighbourhood-scale project for around 1400 people, involves vari-
ous apartment options for different household types including immigrant families, a
mix of infrastructure services on the first floor, extremely restricted car ownership,
and resident involvement in decision-making.
Turning to eastern Europe, Catalina Turcu notes that Romania’s large housing
estates, now privatised, could form a good starting point for compact, socially
mixed, and sustainable urban neighbourhoods. The country’s record for energy ret-
rofitting former social housing developments, however, has been spotty. While the
retrofitting has tackled environmental issues (e.g. energy consumption) and eco-
nomics (energy costs), it has largely disregarded institutional and social aspects (e.
g. there has been little effort to change energy usage).
In Hungary, as Ivan Tosics points out, the main barrier to sustainable compact
cities is the decentralisation of decision-making in favour of a pro-development,
fragmented system of local governments. Hungary’s Integrated Urban Develop-
ment Strategies in the early 2000s offered a solution to this institutional barrier.
Municipalities seeking EU funding had to formulate an anti-segregation vision for
declining neighbourhoods. Hungary’s swing to the political right in 2010, unfortu-
nately, eliminated much of the muscle from the earlier more progressive planning
strategy.
Sustainable Communities and Urban Housing persuaded me about the need for
a three-pronged approach toward community sustainability, but the book demon-
strated how hard it will be to achieve comprehensiveness. Many policy-makers will
be tempted to focus exclusively on environmental issues, i.e. energy efficiency, but
accepting an invitation toward a one-pronged strategy would be disastrous. ‘A fail-
ure to tackle the issue of inadequate housing supply and access to affordable hous-
ing will exacerbate the xenophobia that is already evident in some of the countries
 International Journal of Housing Policy 611

covered in this book, including negative attitudes toward refugees from the Global
South and countries devastated by wars in other regions’ (p. 252).

David P. Varady
University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Email: David.Varady@UC.edu
Ó 2017, David P. Varady
https://doi.org/10.1080/19491247.2017.1372958
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Squatting in Britain 1945–1955: housing, politics, and direct action, by Don

Watson, London, Merlin Press, 2016, 205 pp., $16.99 (paperback), ISBN
9780850367287

Britain’s housing shortage was already acute before the advent of the Second World
War. Married couples, sometimes already with young children, were regularly con-
fined to living in one room in their parental home. Beyond such absolute quantity
problems, price and quality were also issues, culminating in social unrest and pro-
tests such as rent strikes. During the war new construction came to a halt, while
numerous dwellings were destroyed through bombing. When the war finally ended,
the willingness of people to put up with living in overcrowded conditions, paying a
too large part of their wages for substandard dwellings dwindled. Meanwhile, the
newly elected Labour government (admittedly having its hands full, for instance
with installing the National Health Service) was slow in deciding what to do with a
number of now redundant army camps and other war-related sites. Some recently
demobilised service men and their families daringly took matters into their own
hands and openly occupied their old army barracks. Through word of mouth and
media coverage, the news spread quickly. Soon all over the country people moved –
without the owner’s permission – into vacant property that had previously been
used by the government for the war effort. By October 1946, an estimated 48,000
people had housed themselves through such squatting actions in Great Britain. The
national government reacted by devolving the responsibility for dealing with this to
local governments.
This is the starting point of Don Watson’s Squatting in Britain 1945-1955, pub-
lished by the radical left Merlin Press (recent editions include selected works by
Clara Zedkine, and Bakunin). Watson, an independent social historian, earlier pub-
lished on social movements such as the antebellum British National Unemployed
Workers Movement. His newest publication spans just over 200 pages. Given the
interesting, pertinent topic and Watson’s lively and none too dense writing style,