InLondon, a leading capital of global finance, there is a chronic shortage ofaffordable housing. The crisis is at levels not seen since World War II. InBeijing, capital of the twenty-first century’s political powerhouse, thedisplacement of long-standing communities is a daily occurrence. In Mumbai, thebiggest health risk faced by the city today has been identified as overcrowdedhousing, while in São Paulo, football’s 2014 World Cup took place against abackdrop of community unrest and the chronic living conditions of the poor. Theprivate sector, the state and residents themselves are searching for solutions.Whether housing refugees in conflict areas, providing safe water to thehouseholds in the developing world or ensuring key workers can live in thecities they support in the West, the question of housing is not only global,but critical. Thisbook, the third and final in the ‘Housing the Future’ series, is inspired by theneed to deal with a criticalissue at a critical time – the provision of affordable and decenthousing. Whilst the focus of the series has been on design approaches aroundhousing, it will become clear in reading the diverse contributions in this bookthat design cannot, and perhaps should not, be isolated from the social,economic, political and cultural issues that are inevitably in play when wediscuss housing. On that basis, as we will see in this book, the provision ofadequate housing can be considered as one of the most important political problemstoday: an issue played out against a background of disparate policyinterventions, resistances and conflicting aspirations; an issue involvingarchitects, planners, developers, sociologists, artists, housing associations,community representatives, policy makers and more. Thebook comes out of the Housing –Critical Futures research programme led by theacademic non-profit organisation AMPS (Architecture, Media, Politics, Society).It has been produced in collaboration with Swinburne University.
