How do Nordic countries make housing affordable?
Australia’s housing affordability crisis results from over- reliance on just two options – private home ownership and private renting. To tackle it, a wider repertoire of policies is required. Nordic nations’ widespread provision of public housing and housing co-operatives, priority for homes to live in rather than invest in, and effective reduction of homelessness, show how this can happen.
This was recorded on 3rd May 2022 and things may have changed since recording.
The Australia Institute // @theausinstitute
Host: Ebony Bennett, Deputy Director, Australia Institute // @ebony_bennett
Guest: Andrew Scott, Convenor, Nordic Policy Centre at the Australia Institute // @ascottnlights
Producer: Jennifer Macey // @jennifermacey
Edited by: Holly Forrest
Theme Music: Pulse and Thrum; additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
Between the Lines Newsletter
The biggest stories and the best analysis from the team at the Australia Institute, delivered to your inbox every fortnight.
You might also like
For more affordable housing we need more public housing.
Public housing was once much more common – we need more public housing rather than rely on private landlords to keep prices down
The Seamless scheme and developing an Australian circular textiles industry
Every single year in Australia over 200,000 tonnes of textile waste go to landfill, and more than 100,000 tonnes are shipped overseas. Australia must somehow scale this 300,000-tonne mountain of clothing if the nation is to make the textile industry circular by 2030.
Two new housing policies, both doomed to fail
The government’s latest housing affordability policies, “help to buy” and “build to rent” are the latest in a long line of policies from both major parties that will do nothing to ease the housing crisis.