Abstract
This chapter considers the relevance of the sustainability agenda at a time when post-industrial capitalism dominates economic and social relations. It attempts to find links between the way housing is understood as a need and a right while it is, at the same time, defined increasingly as a commodity. It argues that one by-product of this condition is alienation and that it is important to see the debate about current social conditions such as social sustainability and housing, especially in relation to social housing, in the context of alienation.
The loss of access to adequate housing of socially acceptable standards and the dispersal of people from communities are turning into a new norm in the twenty-first century in the UK. The absolute majority of the new housing that is constructed enters the market and remains out of the reach of a majority of low-income people. In the meantime, the extant social housing is marginalized further. This chapter proposes that this relates most closely with the increasing commodification and marketization of housing, and changing significance from its use value to exchange value.
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Notes
- 1.
The Right to Buy was proposed in the Conservative manifesto of 1979 and was enshrined in the Housing Act 1980 in England and Wales and the Housing Tenants Rights, etc. [Scotland] Act 1980.
- 2.
Margaret Thatcher’s first speech as Conservative Party Leader, given in Blackpool, 1975 [Available from: http://www.britishpoliticalspeech.org/speech-archive.htm?speech=121, Accessed: 01.08.2017].
- 3.
Auction of Presidio Terrace in San Francisco in August 2017; The Auction of AAMBY Valley City in the District of Pune in Maharashtra, India, advertised in Time Magazine, August 2017; Private Notice pinned to Tree in Street in Tehran offering to sell body organs.
- 4.
[Gro Harlem Brundtland, Oslo, 20 March 1987, Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future, Chapter 2, Conclusion, section I].
- 5.
‘Sustainable Development Indicators’ published 18th July 2013 by Defra.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sustainable-development-indicators-sdis, [Accessed: 15.08.2017].
- 6.
The 11 indicators are healthy life expectancy, social capital, social mobility in adulthood, housing provision, avoidable mortality, obesity, lifestyles, infant health, air quality, noise and fuel poverty.
- 7.
Sustainable Development Goals (UN 2017).
[Available: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/files/report/2017/TheSustainableDevelopmentGoalsReport2017.pdf, Accessed: 16.08.2017].
- 8.
Eastern and South-eastern Asia – mainly China (28.6 billion metric tons) and Europe and Northern America (21.9 billion metric tons) (UN 2017, p.42).
- 9.
Housing Act 1980, Chapter 51, ‘An Act to give security of tenure, and the right to buy their homes, to tenants of local authorities and other bodies; to make other provision with respect to those and other tenants; to amend the law about housing finance in the public sector; to make other provision with respect to housing; to restrict the discretion of the court in making orders for possession of land; and for connected purposes’ 8th August 1980 [http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1980/51/introduction].
- 10.
Taking the definitions of worker in its broadest sense of functioning in order to earn a living.
- 11.
The term projection is used here in the sense that Cieraad uses it. Cieraard studies the home from an anthropological point of view and draws attention to the concept of ‘projections’. This idea resembles the idea of potentialities; however, its relevance here is the way it demonstrates the importance we place on our self-agency and links outside of ourselves, not only within temporal immediacy but with a view to our future existence. Cieraard’s study found that the ‘temporal restructuring of home in a past, present, and future home, and the intertwining of memories of past homes and projections of future homes’ was important to the individual at a psychological level. However this was not limited to the individual alone but had significance at the ‘collective level of a group’ too (p.93).
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Manoochehri, J. (2018). Social Sustainability, Housing and Alienation. In: Dastbaz, M., Naudé, W., Manoochehri, J. (eds) Smart Futures, Challenges of Urbanisation, and Social Sustainability. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74549-7_4
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