Crisis, ideology and social housing

The paper considers the development of social housing in Iceland, from its beginnings with the construction of the first workers’ dwellings in the 1930s. Housing in Iceland is compared with that of the neighboring countries and an overview of recent sociological housing research is presented. Also,...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Sveinsson, Jón Rúnar
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:Icelandic
Published: School of Social Sciences 2023
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ojs.hi.is/index.php/tf/article/view/3724
Description
Summary:The paper considers the development of social housing in Iceland, from its beginnings with the construction of the first workers’ dwellings in the 1930s. Housing in Iceland is compared with that of the neighboring countries and an overview of recent sociological housing research is presented. Also, the roles of the labour movement and the Icelandic political parties in the formation of housing policy are described. The paper comes to the main conclusion that social housing in Iceland developed quite slowly until the 1960s, both in comparison with the overall development of domestic housing construction and with the amount of social housing construction in other countries. Uniquely, Icelandic social housing has mainly been owner-occupied, albeit with restricted rights for the owners to sell such flats freely on the housing market. Initially, the labour movement and the workers’ parties were the main proponents of social housing, but gradually the initiative in Icelandic social housing construction was transferred to the state and to the municipal authorities. By the turn of the new millennium, the growing strength of neo-liberal ideological hegemony led to the privatization of the entire Icelandic owner-occupied social housing stock. Í greininni er fjallað er um upphaf og þróun félaglegs húsnæðis á Íslandi sem hófst með byggingu verkamannabústaða á fjórða áratug 20. aldar. Húsnæðismál hér á landi eru borin saman við nálæg lönd og helstu rannsóknir innan félagsfræði húsnæðismála eru kynntar. Vikið er að hlutverki verkalýðshreyfingar og stjórnmálaflokka í mótun húsnæðis stefnunnar. Helstu niðurstöður eru þær að þróun félagslegra íbúðabygginga fór hér hægt af stað og allt fram á sjöunda áratuginn var lítið byggt, bæði í samanburði við almennar íbúða byggingar á Íslandi og í erlendum samanburði. Hinar félagslegu íbúðir hér á landi voru lengst af í einkaeign (þó með verulegum takmörkunum væri), en það var mjög fátítt erlendis. Verkalýðshreyfing og verkalýðsflokkar voru virkir aðilar framan af í baráttu fyrir ...