So there’s a ton of countries that I’ve heard have had truly unaffordable housing for decades, like:

  • The UK
  • Ireland
  • The Netherlands

And I’ve heard of a ton of countries where the cost of houses was until recently quite affordable where it’s also started getting worse:

  • Germany
  • Poland
  • Czechia
  • Hungary
  • The US
  • Australia
  • Canada
  • And I’m sure plenty others
  1. It seems to be a pan-Western bloc thing. Is the cause in all these countries the same?
  2. We’ve heard of success stories in cities like Vienna where much of the housing stock is municipally owned – but those cities have had it that way for decades. Would their system alleviate the current crisis if established in the aforementioned countries?
  3. What specific policies should I be demanding of our politicians to make housing affordable again? Is there any silver bullet? Has any country demonstrably managed to reverse this crisis yet?
    • hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      20
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      15 days ago

      As a Finn, please stop talking about us as some kind of utopia. We haven’t solved shit and our government is infested with fascists. I’m preeetty sure there are a lot more than that out there, unless a quarter of those 1000 happen to be around my morning commute.

    • SubArcticTundra@lemmy.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      15 days ago

      That’s good to hear, although it’s kinda beyond the scope of my question. I’m asking more about how to stop prices rising when they’ve suddenly started quickly rising and people don’t know why.

      • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        12
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        16 days ago

        True, but they could just decide to ignore homeless people like most of the US and other capitalist countries have, but they didn’t.

          • Bender@sopuli.xyz
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            edit-2
            15 days ago

            I was going to let him say something obtusely racist and then roast him, but this works too.

            EDIT: He did it anyway.

            • hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              7
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              15 days ago

              Shut uppppp. I live in a building that has a lot of immigrants (mostly students) and we get along just fine. That “oh I’m not racist, different cultures just can’t fit together” argument is bullshit, and even if people from different cultures don’t get along too well, it’s still better than them being outside when it’s -20 degrees.

            • Bender@sopuli.xyz
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              4
              ·
              15 days ago

              Hot take: blatant racism and veiled racism are equally bad reasons for a country to have poor housing policy.

              • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                3
                ·
                15 days ago

                I’m pretty sure ALL reasons are bad reasons? It doesn’t stop humans from generally being racist when it comes to housing. Which is a shame; you grow a lot more as a person when you live next to people from other cultures.

              • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                14 days ago

                Funny how so many people took that. Pointing out that people are, as a whole, racist, and that it influences how they think about the homeless gets turned into a “here’s my bigotry coming out to tell you why it won’t work.”

                I guess I could have framed it more clearly, but once the mods removed it, I figured people would just move on.

        • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          15 days ago

          It doesn’t, that’s just a bullshit, half baked “argument” people like to use when someone points out to them that Scandinavian nations have figured most of this shit out already.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      15 days ago

      Yeah I was going to say Finland. Their public housing system should be an example for other nations to follow.

      They won’t, of course…