Challenging the New Housing Question by Sarah Gainsforth / TPOD, ACHT, THEMA, HITAM

A global housing crisis is increasingly affecting urban areas extending beyond just the poorest individuals to include workers with average salaries, as housing costs outpace incomes, making cities unaffordable for a growing number of people. Indeed, the urban economy has become heavily dependent on the real estate industry, also fueled by public planning programs and investments. With inadequate housing policies in place, these policies contribute to gentrification and the restructuring of the urban space and economy for wealthier residents and temporary city-users, uprooting communities and transforming cities worldwide. But the fate of cities is not sealed, and the means to end the housing crisis are within reach.

Sarah Gainsforth is an independent researcher, writer, and freelance journalist. Her work focuses on housing policies and urban transformation. She has authored numerous books on these topics and writes mainly for Italian media outlets Internazionale and Il Manifesto. She lives and works in Rome.

Neighbours Lecture Series Vol. 3

13/3 - Pier Vittorio Aureli (EPFL). Architecture and Abstraction: Book Launch with Sarah Nichols, Christophe van Gerrewey, and Alfredo Thiermann
20/3 - Tatiana Efrussi (L’atelier des artistes en exil). Hannes Meyer’s Kinderheim Mümliswil: From Utopian 'Home' to National Memorial
27/3 - Sarah Gainsforth (Journalist). Challenging the New Housing Question
10/4 - Claire Zimmerman (University of Toronto). Industrial Architecture, Situated in the Twentieth Century
24/4 - Álvaro Sevilla-Buitrago (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid). Against the Commons: Elements for a Radical Planning Theory
1/5 - Spyros Papapetros (Princeton University). Pre/Architecture
8/5 - Anna-Maria Meister (Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz: Max Planck Institute, KIT and saai archive Karlsruhe). Fragile Objects, Coded Knowledge
15/5 - Platon Issaias (Architectural Association) & Ioanna Theocharopoulou (Columbia University). On the Polykatoikia and its Discontents