Housing costs in major EU cities increased by about 50% between 2015 and 2023 alone. View image in fullscreen Renters’ protest banners in Berlin in 2024 proclaim ‘Don’t displace us’ and ‘Affordable housing for all’. “Our research shows that, after the mid-1990s, Social Democratic control of local councils simply no longer translated into more social housing,” Vinæs Larsen said. “The political effort to expand social housing effectively disappeared.”This, he said, reflected changes in “who mostly lives in social housing, and who votes Social Democrat”. But he also cited possible solutions, such as higher social housing rents – as long as they are still cheaper than private ones.

Source: The Guardian November 28, 2025 09:10 UTC