Social Sustainability, Housing and Alienation

This chapter considers the relevance of the sustainability agenda at a time when post-industrial capitalism dominates economic and social relations. It attempts to find links between the way housing is understood as a need and a right while it is, at the same time, defined increasingly as a commodity. It argues that one by-product of this condition is alienation and that it is important to see the debate about current social conditions such as social sustainability and housing, especially in relation to social housing, in the context of alienation.

The loss of access to adequate housing of socially acceptable standards and the dispersal of people from communities are turning into a new norm in the twenty-first century in the UK. The absolute majority of the new housing that is constructed enters the market and remains out of the reach of a majority of low-income people. In the meantime, the extant social housing is marginalized further. This chapter proposes that this relates most closely with the increasing commodification and marketization of housing, and changing significance from its use value to exchange value.