**5. Strengthening social functions of housing sustainably**

The increased evidence of economic housing functions is, to a large degree, the result of global developments, particularly the financial economy. Although housing commodification manifests locally and regionally differently, a dominance of global interests versus local needs is empirically evident [37]. Therefore, local countermeasures are required, aiming to strengthen the social objectives of sustainable housing. The following suggestions are subdivided into three domains, have been discussed in the literature with different intensity, and are anything but complete. The first domain refers to measures meant to directly strengthen individual and social functions of housing, while the second domain is seen as a framing condition that helps promote personal and social housing functions by forcing back economic housing functions of capital accumulation. The third domain appreciates the local level of political activism by its regional counterpart.

#### **5.1 Strengthening individual and social functions of housing**

Measures that strengthen individual and social functions of housing justify their purpose by the fundamental meaning of housing as being part of the social infrastructure. One of these measures is to prioritize permanent housing function over touristic usage (e.g., Airbnb) or as second homes. In a study of the city of Salzburg, Van-Hametner et al. [38] uncovered 17 percent of housing units being used alienated; political measures like registration, fixing a maximum number of permitted housing units to be used for touristic purposes, or introducing penalty fees, may alleviate this.

Another measure that helps foster social justice in housing politics is seen in a transformation of funding principles. A politics of social housing is doing better if public funds are dedicated to the construction of housing instead of supporting households. Although the latter is tied to income thresholds, political governance restricts itself to the economic strength of households instead of social need.

Because societies and communities are diverse in their lifestyles, cultural attitudes, demographic structure, and capital composition (economic and social capital), housing politics should account for this diversity by expanding the forms of housing. Up to now, the standardized model of the traditional two-generational family has prevailed. Changing household structures (beyond the biological family) call for new co-living forms, such as social co-housing or intergenerational housing, which provide spaces for collective usage [39]. Ideas comprise spaces such

#### *The Impact of Contemporary Housing Functions on Its Social Sustainability DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99277*

as the kitchen or a room for co-working, co-caring or co-recreation. They promote social interaction and safe resources.

A measure to cope with increased biographical mobility of people (due to increased social mobility) and thus residential mobility is to offer more forms of mobile housing, not only as caravans or campers but also as creative forms of tiny houses [40], for which dedicated public spaces are made available by cities and municipalities. 'Mobile' also refers to a growing supply of furnished dwellings, which simplify residential mobility within a city, a region or beyond.

Residential mobility, furthermore, implies an ongoing change of the household composition in urban (as well as rural) neighborhoods. Establishing relational justice among residents and promoting social interaction to accumulate social capital between residents, cannot be expected to be taken for granted under these dynamic conditions. Instead of hoping for an ideal situation of self-organized, bottom-updriven communication spaces, it would be more appropriate to support interaction among residents by introducing facilitators and intermediaries as appreciated nodes in local social networks. This mode of communication, referred to as "organized urbanity" [41], can be realized through particular (elected) residents themselves or through representatives of public social institutions. Urban quarter management thus strives for solving conflicts (not necessarily resolving them) and creating a social environment that enables the reconciliation of interests.

All these measures are dedicated to enhancing the social infrastructure's role of housing against its growing and powerful capital accumulation function.

#### **5.2 Framing individual and social functions of housing**

The construction of new dwellings is seen as an adequate strategy to mitigate rising housing prices in mainstream social politics, preferably in urban and suburban regions. Increasing the supply of housing units appears to be a strategy that satisfies an urgent demand due to an increasing population. This, however, is only partly true. Besides the quantitative growth of an urban population, habits of housing are changing: single-person households, multi-local forms of living ("living apart together"), and second homes in attractive regions do apparently increase the demand for dwellings. This seems to result in the paradox of growing property prices due to increasing housing supply. In fact, profit-seeking strategies are the true cause for this contradiction.

Countermeasures that help mitigate those developments are temporarily and regionally adapted moratoria of housing construction [42]. These are socially sustainable because they stem the causes of maximizing capital accumulation as commercial exploitation of dwellings becomes less attractive, even though a further increase of housing prices during the initial phase of transformation cannot be strictly prevented. A moratorium enables affected cities and municipalities to think about the potential future utilization of the existing stock of buildings. No further land will be sealed, no further resources to construct and open up building sites will be needed, and no further energy needs for construction and maintenance will be consumed. With this measure, the daily consumption of land – in Germany, it is 190 square kilometers per year, in Austria it is 44 [43, 44] – can be reduced considerably. Also, building materials can be saved (for example, cement production contributes to two percent of CO2 emissions in Germany; it is six to eight percent worldwide [45]).

A large part of the existing building stock that can be incorporated into the regular housing market are vacant housing units. 2.8 percent of all housing units in Germany (2019) are estimated to be vacant, i.e. would be available immediately or within six months after renovation [46]. For the city of Salzburg, a conservative estimation is four percent (3.500 housing units) [47] but goes up to nine percent. Accompanying measures of public administration are needed to reactivate vacant homes. Measurements can be restrictive (e.g., a penalty charge) by expressing the political will to prohibit vacancy as a violation of the human right to housing, though they might likely be less effective because reactivation cannot be guaranteed. Constructive measures, such as private-public-partnerships to offer vacant dwellings of private homeowners, would be another approach that would be beneficial as they involve the local knowledge of public authorities about housing needs of households of different income constraints.

All these measures and programs can be easily transferred to vacant office buildings in order to further increase the availability of living spaces. Estimates of 3.5 percent vacancy rate in Germany [48] and 4.7 percent in Vienna [49] (no Austrian data available) likewise illustrate the considerable potential of transformation. Converting office space to living space has primarily to contribute to increase the availability of affordable housing and to restrain strategies of capital accumulation.

Cities and municipalities in Germany and Austria are not only invited to collaborate with private landlords or housing companies more tightly but also to take their general right of pre-emption of housing units more seriously into account. A few cities like Berlin apply this right more intensely in recent years [50]. In order to increase the stock of public housing units by this measure, a more comprehensive financial subsidy and political encouragement of national governments or the European Union is needed. Recalling the above mentioned EU's competition law and property rights illustrates how complex this operation will be, however.

#### **5.3 Complementing individual and social functions of housing**

Cities and municipalities do have a considerable sway to develop, govern and shape their territories, which implies both numerous policy spaces and risks. To maintain or enhance their attractiveness to residents, businessmen or tourists, they are liable to the growth paradigm. New building programs or the renovation of expensive housing blocks is seen as an indicator of economic prosperity in local settlement development. By generalizing this idea, a selfish competition of potential residents takes place, producing winners and losers even if the national population is growing. In order to oppose this thinking and doing, which is anything but sustainable, mandatory regional planning is necessary, which prioritizes regional needs democratically. Designating land to be built is then not any longer subjected to local individual interests. Strengthening regional planning this way has to cope with a reform of local financial planning that enables cities and municipalities to fulfill their local duties in the future as they do today. Merging municipalities would be an alternative which, however, is less likely realizable though not impossible.

Another measure to account for the social and ecological sustainability of housing without causing severe economic disadvantages for local communities is introducing a fee or a tax to redesignated land (farmland that is designated to be built). With this fee, a comprehensive intervention into private property rights will be avoided, and municipalities' pressure to designate land will be reduced. Revenues can be used ring-fenced for public duties as, for example, health and education infrastructure. This way, compensation between private and public interests is feasible.

### **6. Conclusion**

The proposed solutions of the previous section entail a prospective movement towards a more substantial commitment of considering social sustainability of

#### *The Impact of Contemporary Housing Functions on Its Social Sustainability DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99277*

housing a severe issue. Simultaneously, they indicate unfolding the weaknesses of the current circumstances and the obstacles that hinder a progressive socio-ecological transformation of societies. The critical observation that the socio-ecological transformation does not happen [51] results, among other things, in a defensive attitude of liberty, values, and lifestyles of the middle-classes, including the seemingly progressive cultural-left. Ecological behavior in one respect (e.g., buying organic food) serves as to justify a behavior that jeopardizes ecological or social sustainability in another respect (e.g., living in a detached house out in the green).

While the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals frame the global political requirement of a comprehensive transformation of predominantly neoliberal societies (by leaving the question unanswered whether their goal strategies are good suggestions compared with the problems a global population is facing), a complementing local perspective of strategies' implementation is seen necessary to comply with the requirements of sustainability. Strengthening social functions of housing with the proposed instruments appears to be an essential step in this direction.

Relational equity and justice are not meant to be a "nice to have" ingredient to appreciate social relations but an essential component to reducing social inequality remarkably. Localizing social needs and wants in general and social functions of housing, in particular, argues for a relational understanding of geographical space that takes local relationships of people but also of land, commodities, services and capital circulation primarily into account. The presented competition between social and economic housing functions is only one though highly relevant facet in the political and social arena that determines the wellbeing of the present and future generations. Similar efforts are undertaken that refer to ideas of the commons, degrowth, sharing or circular economies. They all have in common a different understanding of co-habitation – co-habitation that rests upon local and thus trans-local governance and shared responsibility. It eludes comparability for profitseeking accumulation strategies and favors subsistence over global production and consumption. Promoting localizing strategies can help amplify a comprehensive understanding of sustainability.
