America has a unique take on the terms ‘social housing’ and ‘public housing.’ In most of the rest of the world, they are used pretty-much interchangeably for the same thing.
Americans know public housing as a failed experiment in racist, supposedly anti-social housing— a reputation that has evolved for nigh on a century. It’s often beloved by those low and no-income citizens who call it home. For nearly everyone else in the country, it is considered a disastrous failure.
That’s public housing in Seattle. Drive a few kilometres north to Vancouver, B.C. and the same kind of housing is casually called, not ‘public’ housing, but ‘social’ housing. These, and several other names, are rooted in similar experiments to create truly affordable housing
In the U.S., the term ‘social housing’ as currently used is a hope for the future, a deeply affordable housing that will embrace and encompass the nation’s poorest, but will also be built to create desirable living for the more affluent. The following article uses ‘social housing’ as an expression of those ideals.
Such ‘social’ housing has successfully proved itself under either ‘social’ or ‘public’ names in other parts of the world. Two places are often brought to people’s attention as a worthwhile housing model for the future. They are Vienna, Austria, and the City State of Singapore. Each has evolved by different means to become tremendous social housing successes today.
What has made them successful? The following post focuses on Vienna, with an explanation of how social housing evolved over time. There are some readers who are unnerved by words such as ‘social’ that hint at ‘socialism.’ They can rest easy about Vienna’s social housing. Both Vienna and Singapore are staunchly capitalist cities within capitalist states.
Read a detailed discussion of how Vienna’s successful social housing works in The Nation1: Reflections on Vienna’s Social Housing Model From Tenant Advocates
