Barcelona’s housing policy under austerity urbanism: a contribution to the debate on degrowth and urban planning

TL;DR: In this article , the authors explore the urban dimension of a radical socio-ecological transformation inspired by the idea of degrowth, geared towards achieving humanity's long-term wellbeing and sustainability.

TL;DR: In this paper , a new narrative of urban degrowth economics is proposed to operationalise degrowth on a larger scale, and the strategies and policies of cities that represent selected networks or phenomena through the lens of such a narrative can demonstrate which of the current approaches to urban development are closest to degrowth values.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a case study of the financialization of both housing and the state in the Netherlands, showing that almost half of Dutch housing associations used derivatives, although most refrained from using them purely speculatively, and the largest of them all, Vestia, was an extreme case of what can happen when public goals are left to be realized by inadequately supervised and poorly managed private organizations.

TL;DR: In this article , the authors focus on transport as a vehicle for understanding and addressing this challenge, thus contributing to the broader agenda of spatialising and urbanising degrowth. And they demonstrate that when analysing and planning urban transport, degrowth may well build on diverse ‘critical’ perspectives on transport to engage head-on with explicitly political-economic questions underpinning urban agendas, thus avoiding joining the glossary of de-politicised and technocratic notions, and disregarding the socioeconomic, political and spatial complexity of the urban.

TL;DR: In recent years, urban governance has become increasingly preoccupied with the exploration of new ways in which to foster and encourage local development and employment growth as mentioned in this paper, and urban entrepreneurship has become a hot topic.

TL;DR: Krastev as discussed by the authors argues that if a citizen today seeks to criticize, say, rising inequality, to what should he turn to find those responsible? The market? The government? New technologies? Could any government succeed in reducing inequality on its own without destroying his country's competitiveness?

TL;DR: Austerity is the order of the day in Europe, but Professor Mark Blyth argues that austerity is a very dangerous idea and does not work as mentioned in this paper, arguing that all we do is shrink the economy.