64. Anitra Nelson: Housing for Degrowth, and Small is Necessary_TMBTP

In this episode of This Must Be The Place Elizabeth speaks with RMIT’s Associate Professor Anitra Nelson about a new book, “Housing for De-Growth: Principles, Models, Challenges and Opportunities”, and a slightly less new (but still 2018) book, “Small is Necessary: Shared Living on a Shared Planet”. ‘Degrowth’ — a type of ‘postgrowth’ — is a political, practical and cultural movement for down-scaling material and energy throughputs. Housing for Degrowth, co-edited by Anitra with Francois Schneider, includes an international collection of critical case studies, many written by activist scholars, of practical experiments – ‘demonstrations’ – in approaches to housing. While diverse in their contexts, they tend to share principles such as an emphasis on housing justice, security, and basic rights. Degrowth projects also emphasise moving forward with the best available technologies, rather than austerity/moving backwards, or ‘decoupling’ that emphasises technological solutions. They also prioritise re-use and reduction in materials and energy, and designing for future re-use. The case studies explore benefits but also unexpected trade-offs - for example, the chapter on tiny house living reflects critically on the colonial and homesteading narratives of tiny homes. Without closing down discussions of larger system change, Housing for Degrowth is about grassroots groups and experiences: with the logic that “the only way we can actually get people on board is if they feel confident that they’re not going to be losing their safety and security and those things they really care about”. Small is Necessary is not explicitly about degrowth, but speaks to case studies consistent with degrowth principles. It examines examples and ideas for housing based on sharing and collaboration: including cohousing, land-sharing, and ecovillages. In it Anitra speaks about the move to smaller housing and to co-living in terms of what it can offer diverse groups, including older people: more security, affordability, amenities, support from neighbours. The episode notes parallels with the utopian thinking, and ideas of quality over quantity, of William Morris in “Notes from Nowhere” (1890). For example, huge increases in housing size often go alongside reduced rights to public space. The episode also covers challenges of prevailing housing systems; the difficult role of rights-speak in social movements; tensions between environmental and social movements; and planning regulations. For example Anitra suggests planners should enable and allow simple and smaller buildings as long as they are safe and secure. However, most policy frameworks directly discourage these kinds of housing. Each of the cases in “Housing for Degrowth” reflects on difficulties met with permit processes. These highlight basic dilemmas in policy: standards based on fears of overcrowded families, while serving a purpose and having historical grounding, are not necessarily consistent with current issues in housing systems. Anitra talks about what is drawing people in to models like co-housing. One driver is the housing market: the experience of higher housing and energy costs, and of housing insecurity. In Europe, shrinking areas and cities are another driver – Anitra was recently part of a workshop at the EU Parliament, where policy-makers unexpectedly open to hearing about alternatives to growth models commented, “honestly, we feel like we have exhausted mainstream possibilities”. Anitra has lived in co-housing for several decades. Housing for Degrowth is available through the Routledge Environmental Humanities Series. Small is Necessary is available through Pluto Press and also open access.