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What is wrong with housing in Eastern Europe today?
Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal,
14
(2),
128-134
(2020)
Abstract
The fall of communism in Eastern Europe was one of the most significant and dramatic events in the second half of the 20th century. While it has brought huge improvements in people’s lives, it has also led to serious housing shortages, resulting in a severe lack of affordable housing and rapidly rising homelessness. The author discusses the main implications of this and highlights the current situation in two former communist countries. Here he focuses on the approaches taken at a sub-government level, including how communities are working to take control and design and build homes themselves.
Keywords: housing; communism; homelessness; community-led housing; Bratislava; Slovenia
The full article is available to subscribers to the journal.
Author's Biography
David Ireland has been leading World Habitat since June 2014. He has been a housing activist while working for local authorities, government, the media and charities. He is a trustee of the charity Action Homeless and currently co-chair of the Association of Charitable Foundations Housing and Homelessness group, alongside being an associate of the Centre for Comparative Housing Studies at the DeMontfort University, Leicester. David was previously Chief Executive of the Empty Homes Agency where he persuaded successive UK governments to introduce legislation and fund programmes to get empty homes into use. He was awarded an OBE in 2013 for services to housing.
