A comparative view of social housing in Europe. The case of Barcelona and London.

Abstract

Housing policy in Europe is characterized by its diversity. There is not one only model for housing managing or only one social housing concept or approach to the issue. Each country has its own different criteria to address the housing problem. It can be found different views of management depending largely on the population to be served, land tenure systems, size of housing units, among others. This difference in approach is related to the different models of the Welfare State in both countries (Arbaci, 2007; Balchin, 1996; Kemeny, 1995). The United Kingdom leads the countries with a large state intervention (spending more than 3% of GDP in housing policies). UK has stocks of social rental housing in larger (≥ 20%), contrary to Spain case that invests mostly a 1% of GDP and has 2% of the stock of social rented housing.

This article presents a summary of the main differences in the management model of social housing in London and Barcelona and also considers the housing problem from a social and spatial view, which cannot be analysed separately from its urban environment because, as Cortés states: "each housing unit belongs to a spatial context that imposes itself on its inhabitants and residents" (2000: 310). It has been taken as case studies two areas of social housing mass construction (La Mina in Barcelona and North Peckham in London) in which each state has made big urban regeneration investments to alleviate various social problems presented, due to the high concentration of poverty and scarcity of services characteristic of residential estates in the 60’s and 70’s.