LaGeS Seminar | Friday October 6, 11:00  | Aula Parva, Via San Gallo 10, SAGAS - UNIFI

Housing crisis in Greece: causes, effects, and possible solutions

Dimitris Balampanidis, Urban Social Geographer (PhD), Geography Department, Harokopio University, Athens, GR

Recent developments in Greece, such as the expansion of the AirBnB rentals, the “Golden Visa” programme, the promotion of private investments and the activation of new actors in the real estate market, have led to remarkable socio-spatial transformations and contributed to the persistent and worsening housing crisis. The disproportionately high real estate and rent prices and the increasing overall housing costs, the non-performing loans and the auctions, energy poverty, processes of displacement as result of touristification constitute only some of the serious problems that many households are faced with. This is about a housing crisis that affects not only the usually “vulnerable groups” (immigrants and refugees, unemployed, people living below the poverty line etc.) but a large part of the population formerly part of a broad and prosperous -today impoverished- middle class.

Recently, the issue of the housing crisis in Greece gained unprecedented visibility in the political sphere, with all major political parties introducing it into their political agenda. The housing strategy and the specific programs and measures promoted and already being implemented by the government are (criticized to be) guided by a market-oriented, individualist, and project-based approach in the place of a long-term integrated housing policy, including the regulation of the real estate market. Interesting efforts and experimentations are made by scholars, housing experts and policymakers, aimed at the global access to affordable and decent housing, the decrease of housing inequalities and the increase of social cohesion. Providing solutions is not an easy matter, however the relevant discussion is now open, real efforts are in progress and different approaches are being tried out.

Introduction: Laura Colini, IUAV - University of Venice | Discussant: Panos Bourlessas, LaGeS, SAGAS