The global affordable housing crisis
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 25 April 2019
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Do rent controls and the expropriation of apartment blocks provide an answer to the increasing cost of housing in the rich world?
Such radical measures are being considered in many of the world's biggest metropolises, as more and more residents find themselves being priced out of their home cities.
Manuela Saragosa speaks to Tom McGath of the Berlin-based campaign group Deutsche Wohnen Enteignen, who wants the city authorities to seize ownership of housing from the German capital's biggest landlords. But leading urbanist Richard Florida of the University of Toronto says there are better ways of tackling the shortage, not least taking on the "not in my back yard" brigade.
(Picture: A banner put up by tenants in Berlin protesting against the sale of apartments; John Macdougall/AFP/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | 60 seconds. Landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. |
| 0:04.6 | 50 down at 2.5. They hadn't even gone into orbit. |
| 0:08.0 | 13 minutes to the moon from the BBC World Service coming soon. |
| 0:18.9 | Hello, I'm Manuela Saragossa. Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. Coming up, the words that strike fear into the heart of any private landlord, rent control. |
| 0:30.6 | Rents have gone up way above what people have been earning. We want to make sure the increases don't go on at such a rate in the future. |
| 0:37.3 | We're asking why affordable housing is such a persistent and apparently intractable problem for so many cities. |
| 0:44.7 | Is there a solution? |
| 0:46.1 | It's a very simple problem and there's actually some pretty basic solutions to get us out of it, |
| 0:51.1 | but they seem to be politically difficult to execute. |
| 0:54.4 | That's all here in Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 1:00.6 | Housing is expensive and often downright unaffordable for many ordinary workers in cities around the world, |
| 1:08.0 | which may explain why the idea of rent control is back in vogue. |
| 1:12.5 | The US state of Oregon passed a law this February to cap rent increases at 7% plus inflation. |
| 1:19.4 | Colorado and New York are considering similar measures. |
| 1:22.9 | Rent control is also back on the political agenda in California this week. |
| 1:26.8 | And here in London, the mayor, Sadiq Khan, is looking into rent control too. |
| 1:31.9 | That's after a poll showed that more than two-thirds of Londoners |
| 1:35.5 | want the government to cap how much landlords can charge their tenants. |
| 1:39.7 | The BBC's Mike Johnson has this report. |
| 1:45.7 | Hello, Leanna. Hi, it's Mike from the BBC. |
| 1:48.4 | Good to meet you. How are you? |
| 1:49.8 | Leanna Etkind shows me round her one-bedroom apartment in Forest Hill in South London. |
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