Housing for Degrowth

Anitra Nelson is an activist-scholar, Associate Professor in the Centre for Urban Research at RMIT University, Melbourne (Australia), and author and editor of several books including Small is Necessary: Shared Living on a Shared Planet (2018) and Life Without Money: Building Fair and Sustainable Economies (ed.) (2011).François Schneider has supported degrowth since 2001. Co-founder of Research & Degrowth (http://degrowth.org/) and initiator of degrowth conferences, he is associate researcher at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA), Autonomous University of Barcelona. In 2012, he started the experiential project Can Decreix, 'house of degrowth' in Catalan.

"This is a splendid and very readable book on housing and urban planning for degrowth. The degrowth perspective implies a decrease in the social metabolism and an increase in communality and conviviality. There are many chapters on actual types of degrowth housing in many countries and fundamental discussions of top-down versus bottom-up urban planning leading to these objectives. This book should become a textbook for courses in architecture, and urban and rural planning." — Joan Martinez Alier, Emeritus Professor of Economics and Economic History and Senior Researcher at ICTA, Autonomous University of Barcelona, and Co-director of the EJAtlas (www.ejatlas.org)"Degrowth is not just a theory — it is practice and it has policy implications. This fantastic collection of new essays shows how a degrowth mindset opens new ways of thinking alternatives and solutions to what is becoming a truly global housing crisis." — Giorgos Kallis, ICREA Research Professor at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, and a co-editor of Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Paradigm (2014)"This book brings together astonishingly rich views on sustainable urban development, wholly local but with a global coverage. It fits in with trends away from evermore centralised decision making for growth towards local independence. Decentralised autonomy can halt encroachment of global organisations in private life, with communal housing at its core." — Gjalt Huppes, Senior Researcher, Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) at Leiden University, Netherlands

• Foreword Joan Martinez-Alier Part 1 Simple Living for All1. Housing for growth narratives Anitra Nelson2. Housing for degrowth narratives François SchneiderPart 2 Housing Justice3. From the ‘Right to the City’ to the ‘Right to Metabolism’ Elisabeth Skarðhamar Olsen, Marco Orefice and Giovanni Pietrangeli4. How can squatting contribute to degrowth? Claudio CattaneoPart 3 Housing Sufficiency5. Rethinking home as a node for transition Pernilla Hagbert6. Framing degrowth: The radical potential of tiny house mobility April Anson7. Housing and climate change resilience: Vanuatu Wendy Christie and John SalongPart 4 Reducing Demand8. Christiania: A Poster Child for Degrowth? Natasha Verco9. Refurbishment vs demolition? Social housing campaigning for degrowth Mara Ferreri10. The Simpler Way: Housing, living and settlements Ted TrainerPart 5 Ecological Housing and Planning11. Degrowth: A Perspective from Bengaluru, South India Chitra Vishwanath12. Low impact living: More than a house Jasmine Dale, Robin Marwege and Anja Humburg13. Neighbourhoods as the basic module of the global commons Hans Widmer (‘P.M.’) with Francois Schneider14. The quality of small dwellings in a neighbourhood context Harpa Stefansdottir and Jin XuePart 6 Whither Urbanisation?15. Housing for degrowth: Space, planning and distribution Jin Xue16. Urbanisation as the death of politics: Sketches of degrowth municipalism Aaron Vansintjan17. Scale, place and degrowth: Getting from here to ‘there’ — On Xue and Vansintjan I Andreas Exner18. Geography matters: Ideas for a degrowth spatial planning paradigm — On Xue and Vansintjan IIKarl Krähmer19. ‘Open localism’ — On Xue and Vansintjan III François Schneider and Anitra NelsonPart 7 Anti-Capitalist Values and Relations20. Mietshäuser Syndikat: Collective ownership, the ‘housing question’ and degrowth Lina Hurlin21. Non-monetary eco-collaborative living for degrowth Anitra Nelson22. Summary and research futures for housing for degrowth Anitra Nelson and François Schneider