Affordability: The response to the gentrification crisis

Traffic in Shoreditch, East London. (Source: Avax News)

We talk of gentrification and struggle with affordability, or is it the other way around? It is hard to tell as those are two concepts that most millennials face on a daily basis. Living in Shoreditch or Hoxton, two of London's previously predominantly working-class areas, you can’t throw a stick now without it landing in someone’s soy latte. In the past 20 years, spaces such as these have seen a giant wave of gentrification accompanied by higher land and property prices. The process of ‘hipsterfication’ has transformed former industrial buildings into offices and flats, with art galleries, restaurants, bars and cafes to follow suit, to cover the new demand.

It is hard to see those transformations happening without noticing that such spaces in London and elsewhere around the world are affected by ‘City’-like projects. Due to the recent hype with Shoreditch and Hoxton, several high rise structures have started creeping in, breaking the soft boundaries between the City of London and the more bohemian area to the north. In many cases, those new structures bring the much needed residential units. They supply for the current demand of housing in London. However, do they provide for the existing or are they selling to a new category? How many units are actually affordable? And more to the point, are they affordable for the area? I would argue, to the new, not many and in many cases no.

The conflict

In her 1964 book ‘London: Aspects of Change’, Ruth Glass stresses that gentrification is about the class imbalance, injustice and infringement enabled by the capitalist urban land market and policies. The pursuit of higher property value and better places is not done for the benefit of the low-income and middle-class households but at their expense. Displacement, eviction and homelessness are symptoms of a spreading fever which favours the creation of urban environments which serve the need of capital accumulation with little regards given to the social needs. This fever has hold not only on developers who are, in many cases, serving primarily capital interests but of local governing bodies which are forgetting their constituency.

'95% of Londoners would qualify for reduced rent accommodation'

A few weeks back, during the opening night of The Surface Design Show, a panel of speakers debated the housing crisis faced by London. Specifically, the guests took turns talking on the topic titled ‘A crisis for the young generation - Is London just for the wealthy?’. Zahra Chiheb, a project architect at Levitt Bernstein, remarked that based on the definition of Affordable Housing in London, 95% of Londoners would qualify for reduced rent accommodation. Even more worrying, 5% of households are below the deprivation point, and there is very little done to address their housing needs.

Artist's impressions of the Greenwich peninsula show several huge tower blocks, designed to contain at least 12,000 new homes. (Source: Business Insider)

I think that the fever of accumulation has seen its symptoms accentuated not by an unwillingness to act but by a general misunderstanding of design. Delivering houses is like having friends over for dinner. One wants to treat guests to something which they will like, not something that focuses on their culture, income level, or marital status. You cook for them a lovely dinner because you have a standard and you respect them. I believe it is the same with housing. So many developments today are done without knowing what they stand for, what is their purpose or what design principles they follow. Good quality homes need not be expensive and affordable accommodations need not be of lower quality to make them cheap.

The cases

In New York, a housing market vastly out of reach for many, Amazon has envisaged its HQ2. With an influx of 50,000 new workers and an investment of approximately $5 billion in the construction process, the project seems to be bringing more sorrow than joy. If the proposal moves forward, it threatens to exacerbate several problems the city already face, one of which being housing. A system once distinguished by ownership and private property is dominated now by lease and scarcity. In light of that, several community organisations took it upon themselves to point out through an open letter to Amazon’s CEO the impact of such a project, including out-of-state hiring, unaffordable housing and gentrification. A report by the website Apartment List, based on historical home-building statistics and data from the US Census, reinforces that same point by indicating a potential annual rent increase of 0.1% to 0.2% due to such a project. In other words, in the next decade, the household rent in the city, could rise from $1,391 to $2,182. The repercussions of such a project would have an impact not only on housing but also on small businesses which would be unable to find affordable spaces.

'the City of Sydney needs to grow its affordable housing supply with another 10,000 units by 2030'

Sydney, second only to Hong Kong in the top 10 least affordable housing markets in the world, is confronting itself with a crisis on an even larger scale. According to a 2017 report, in the past decade, Sydney has managed to increase its affordable housing stock by approximately 400 dwellings. To keep up with the increasing demand for residential accommodations the City of Sydney needs to grow its affordable housing supply with another 10,000 units by 2030. However, developments such as the one proposed for the Waterloo Estate in Sydney are not the answer. Triggered by the NSW state government, the plans to redevelop the area will result in the relocation of 3,600 people and the implementation of a high-density masterplan. The result of this is the significant disturbance of the social mix with large numbers of private housing and commercial properties. Such projects have a much broader effect on the urban fabric. They trigger a mass reaction which has seen the housing prices of Waterloo growing by 16% in the last three years according to one property website.

Residents protest against the demolition of Waterloo Estate in Sydney (Source: Tom Wholohan)

For Mumbai, the problem is twofold, slums and the lack of affordable housing. Estimates indicate that 6.5 million people, around 55% of Mumbai’s total population, live in slums. The burgeoning employment opportunities in the city have resulted in a mass influx of people from outer regions of India. Since 1911, Mumbai’s population has grown by 983%. Due to the city being surrounded by water on three sides, it is difficult to find spaces to expand. Therefore many of the new developments are demolishing older structures - 4 to 6 storey tall with green areas and playgrounds - and replacing them with 20-25 storey towers in with barely any space in between. A 2012 article in the Environment and Urbanization Asia indicates that similar to London, 94-95% of all the households in Mumbai City would qualify for affordable housing. As the cheap accommodation is replaced, people need to relocate due to prices increased within the new development or the broader area which becomes expensive real estate.

The options

So what is the solution? How can the issue of affordable housing be tackled without gentrifying? A few ideas are floating around. Most of them treating the effect rather than the cause. In London, plans range from policy changes which assist citizens, ‘Help to buy’ implemented by the Cameron administration, to more recent ones such as the new London Plan which outlines quantum and ways of reaching the required number within the next ten years. Although policies are the cornerstone which allows developments to happen, the more pragmatic of the bunch, start designing for the current with the hopes of improving the future.

The Collective's Old Oak Common scheme (Source: PLP Architecture)

For example, pocket flats work on the idea that a smaller than minimum standard space is created to a higher design standard to suit singles or couples' average London salaries. Pocket Living is one company which delivers such projects, and they market to Londoners with a wage lower than £60,000 a year. The flats have large windows, underfloor heating and its careful design, whatever that means, looks to compensate for the 38 sqm size of the one-bed apartment. Pocket homes sell on average at 20% below the local price equivalent. And to be honest, you get 20% less home for that price.

'at £250 per week, I fail to see where the affordability is.'

Co-living is becoming the latest accommodation trend set up on the same principles as car sharing, bike sharing and hot desking. With millennials on the lookout for social spaces rather than ownership, the shared living provides the cross between student housing and hotels. By sharing spaces such as longest, kitchens and bathrooms, the entrepreneurs behind co-living support that this method of living has found a way of providing an upmarket version of student-style housing for adults. However, some might argue that it is for adults who are not yet grown up. The concept seems to be catching on; someone is cleaning for you, making sure you have toothpaste and toilet paper. If it would also have someone making the bed, they might not need the parents popping over to help with the washing. Furthermore, at £250 per week, I fail to see where the affordability is. You still end up paying £1,000 per month for a student room in zone 3 or 4. On the plus side, it is delivering new housing, filling the gap between the supply and demand.

EgoCity by Winy Maas and The Why Factory

Micro Homes interest to me the most. From MINI Living to Homeless Foundation and many others have created prototypes for this compact way of having everything under a small roof while experiencing comfort and ownership. This idea seems to be a response to the effect rather than the cause. However, I am not that bothered as it ticks a lot of the other boxes. People who lived for any period in Manhattan on an average salary are more often than not experts on micro living. Although attractive as an experiment, micro things have a micro impact. In saying that, there is hope for them still. (W)ego by Winy Maas and The Why Factory explores an adaptive, flexible and continuously adapting space that provides for the needs of the modern user.

'Relocation disturbs communities and injections of capital [...] distort the urban mix leading to gentrification.'

Incremental change takes time and policies take us only halfway. Relocation disturbs communities and injections of capital in a specific part of the city distort the urban mix leading to gentrification. There seems to be no single solution to the issue. In the UK it might be easy to criticise the government for not being as proactive as it was in the pre-Thatcher days with regards to construction but that would not make the houses spring out of the ground. New initiatives are looking to reenact some of the government lead housing initiatives of the past while at the same time triggering new public-private partnerships to further bridging the gap in the property market. In saying that, there will always be the concern of time. Many of those proposals take time, and with politics being what they are, it is difficult to maintain interest in such projects over the course of a decade or even more. Are there any ‘quick wins’ which can provide a constant refocus on the issue?

The opportunity

I think, and I might be wrong, that now is the time to take the initial step and build. Build with material and build with policy, build because we believe in something more than profit. Build for the future we want, by learning from the problems we have. To find a new route towards low priced accommodation new bridges need constructing over the canyon between supply and demand. Gone should be the days when affordable equalled substandard when the idea of living in an affordable development equalled seeing rags dry in the windows. The implementation of high-quality design should be universal. However, the principles of quality and urban design need to be reevaluated. There are too many bad copies out there to afford to print even more. We need to define the theory of change that is required to deliver change which is forward-looking, honest development.

'There are too many bad copies out there to afford to print even more.'

Can the London standards be remastered and instead of affordable units focus on affordable prices? Regardless of zone or area, base the measure of affordability on the same parameters. Each development would have 50-50 market to affordable price accommodations. The system would surveys newly established zone prices and determines an average then adjusted it to eliminate peak housing prices. An automated system which connected London under a singular matrix which regulates the requirements for housing in real time while continually adapting the rates based on an average annual salary growth for each unit in the system. This method will determine developments to deliver the market units while receiving live updates on the impact of those so they can balance through affordable units. As a result, this will avoid gentrification as no single development could impact the prices in any part of the city by more than the percentage of annual growth for that particular area. Such a strategy would not solve the existing crisis; it will, however, prevent a downward spiral.

'In today's interconnected city, by designing for one, we design for the other.'

I believe that the future of the city is flexible. Flexible enough to respond to the necessities and demands of its population. Able to adapt and allow for all types of living, in constant development to provide the optimum arrangement for a better, cleaner, more inclusive space defined by every citizen. The city is ours. We can either wait until it becomes uninhabitable for some or makes it a safe-heaven for all. In today's interconnected city, by designing for one, we design for the other. Therefore it is vital always to consider the principles of what we understand through 'good design'.

P.S. Hey everybody, thank you for reading! It is great to be back. I had some interesting projects capturing my attention during January and most of February but I am looking to get back on track with the blog and continue populating it with different materials. There are videos and new projects still to come and I am hoping for some good news on an article I proposed for an 'open call' but more on that when the time comes.

For now, I hope you enjoyed the read. See you next time.