Housing crisis: “Let’s do this, let’s do that”

Faced with the housing crisis, ready-made formulas are multiplying: “Build-this,” “Tax-that,” “Free-up-this.” But behind these simplistic phrases lies a far more complex reality, made up of compromises, tradeoffs and shared responsibilities. To break the deadlock, it’s no longer enough to pile on ideas: we need to think about how to implement them.

On housing, everyone puts forward their own formula. “Build more.” “We should tax empty homes.” “It’s time to free up land.”

Apart from these pretty formulas, who is capable of formulating worthwhile proposals? The people most affected. And proposals abound: 50, 80, 100, sometimes more... Some shine by their ingenuity, others seduce by their apparent obviousness. But none of them is of any value without rigorous implementation. Inflation of ideas is not enough to build a policy.

Behind every serious proposal lies a complex architecture: legal adjustments, budgetary tradeoffs, local resistance, divergent interests. Intuition does not make reform, nor does consensus.

The state--in Luxembourg as elsewhere--plays a driving role. But the dynamic cannot succeed without the municipalities. For it is the communes, who--on a day-to-day basis--plan, authorise and accommodate. The relationship between the national and local levels deserves to be rethought in a spirit of strengthened partnership, mutual listening and shared responsibility. Without this alignment, the best intentions will struggle to find concrete expression.

This magazine seeks neither to impress with volume, nor to reassure with empty promises. It brings together a hundred or so levers from the field, designed to work together and create room for manoeuvre. It’s not an inventory, but a trajectory.

Slogans offer no lasting solutions. The illusion of “we-only-have-to-do-this-or-that” prevents us from laying the foundations for credible action.

Even 200-measure plans, such as Ireland’s, struggle to bend the curve on prices or deadlines.

The time for shortcuts is coming to an end. All that remains is to choose the effort, the dialogue and the method. And, finally, to enter the dance--the real dance, not a “do-this-do-that” that sounds like a new summer dance.

This article was written in for the of Paperjam magazine, published on 24 April. The content is produced exclusively for the magazine. It is published on the site to contribute to the full Paperjam archive. .

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