September 12 – 2023

Changing housing policies: Housing foundations, planners and the politics of need interpretations

Ina M Christiansen, PhD Student, Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research & Centre for the Study of Professions, Oslo Metropolitan University

Abstract
New housing policies promoting access to adequate, affordable housing for all, not only the ‘most disadvantaged on the housing market’, are on the political agenda in several Norwegian municipalities. Based on findings from a comparative case study in two Norwegian cities, this presentation asks how such policies are shaped and reshaped in the administrative and political processes. It also explores the differences in how housing foundations in these cities operate and how their respective pilot projects relate to these processes. While one housing foundation is administered as a municipal tool, the other operates more autonomous and based on more explicit political ambitions. How do their pilot projects relate to the new housing policies? Employing a politics of needs-perspective (Fraser, 1989), the presentation discusses the role of housing foundations and municipalities in politicizing certain kind of needs. In the policies and projects, whose needs are and are not acknowledged and acted upon, who interpret these needs, and how do these need interpretations resonate with the Norwegian housing regime?

Discussant: Henrik Gutzon Larsen, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Human Geography, Lund University

Aalborg East and the changing role(s) of Danish housing associations: Urban (re)development and the pursuit of “social mix”

Matthew Howells, PhD Student in Urban Planning, Aalborg University

Abstract
This presentation uses the example of Himmerland Boligforening’s redevelopment of Aalborg East to understand how the role(s) of housing associations are changing in Denmark. As a response to various techniques of governance and a significant political discourse around the status of housing associations as vectors of social issues, a specific set of ideals and a specific trajectory of development is beginning to influence the Danish housing association sector. This manifests in part as a more strategic and entrepreneurial approach to the development of housing associations as organizations as well as their estates. Based on document analysis and key actor interviews, this case shows the evolution of planning interventions in Aalborg East and concomitant development of the administrative wing of the organisation. Furthermore, the case highlights a reconfiguration of the responsibilities of housing associations vis à vis the state.

Discussant: Tina Gudrun Jensen, Researcher at the Department of Global Political Studies, Malmö University