_by_ Anna Pagani, Hans Volmary, Daniel Fitzpatrick* Providing housing for all is central to building any future. Yet, the system put in place to deliver housing globally has been relentlessly driven by growth imperatives. The consequences are far reaching: unhealthy, unsafe, overcrowded, over- or underheated, and inadequate housing, which is paralleled by the soaring greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss tied to the construction and operation of buildings. We are a group of practitioners, activists, and researchers who came together at the 2025 _International Degrowth Conference_ to share and discuss efforts towards housing (for) a postgrowth world. We found common ground in four proposals, which challenge the current dominant housing paradigm. Together, we wrote a manifesto, **which can be found at this link. **You can support it by signing the document and joining our online launch, using the buttons at the top of the page. In the manifesto, we reaffirm the well-documented crises that permeate the housing sector, and we set forth a collective vision for housing beyond growth. _But we do not stop at critique._ We highlight initiatives from across the globe that reveal how people are already building homes rooted in care, equity, and ecological responsibility. This manifesto aims to forge a shared language – one that unites diverse struggles and visions for the future, across geographies and political perspectives. It is a call to action, a framework for solidarity, and a commitment to providing homes that nurture both people and the planet. **1** **Alternative housing narratives need to be reaffirmed around collective well-being, reframing homes as shared resources grounded in care, affordability, and connection to place.** **2** **Housing needs to be liberated from market pressures and reclaimed as a collective right** _**and**_ **ecological responsibility, ensuring homes that nurture communities and care and enable sustainable human-nature relations.** **3** **Housebuilding targets need to be based on a just, sufficient, and collectively agreed distribution of the housing stock, focused on enhancing the quality, accessibility, and environmental performance of existing homes.** **4** **Housing needs to be reconceptualised as a decentralised infrastructure that extends beyond the individual unit and household, and supporting multi-scalar amenities and alliances.** * * * * This manifesto originated at the International Degrowth and Ecological Economics conference, Oslo, 2025. The conveners were, * **Anna Pagani** is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Engineering at King’s College London. She is also part of the Post-growth planning cluster of the UCL Bartlett School of Planning. In her research, she uses systems thinking and participatory approaches to co-design housing strategies that challenge the hegemony of growth and prioritize health and wellbeing within planetary boundaries. * **Hans Volmary** is a scientific assistant (post-doc) at the Institute for Human Geography of the Technical University Dresden, Germany. His research centers around the financialization of housing and care, its social-ecological implications and how the provision of care and housing interacts in urban spaces. * **Daniel Fitzpatrick** is a Lecturer (Teaching) in Planning Studies at the Bartlett School of Planning, where he teaches a plan-making project based module based on post-growth planning. His research is focused on community-led planning, regeneration and housing – processes of planning, governance and implications for post- and de-growth futures. For a full list of contributors, please visit this link and add your signature! ### Share this: * Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Click to print (Opens in new window) Print * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Like Loading... ### _Related_

Providing housing for all is central to building any future.

### In aliis linguis * Castellano * Català _(Translated by Mark Burton from the original in Spanish, which is part of a series of reflections for and on the Beyond Growth Conference held in Madrid in September 2025.)_ The _Beyond Growth Spain_ Conference document offers us a promising future: less production, less consumption… but, curiously, more public services, more rights, more democracy, more of everything good and none of the bad. In other words Deluxe Degrowth. We know that the current model does not work, and this _Declaration_ lists the usual suspects: capitalism, patriarchy, colonialism, extractivism… all the villains of the comic book gathered in the same cartoon. So far, so good. But the document avoids what is uncomfortable. Because degrowth implies something very simple in our day to day experience: it implies less of the many things that we are used to. Yet instead of saying it clearly, the text takes refuge in euphemisms: ‘democratically planned eco-social transition’, ‘democratic reorganisation of the economy’, ‘living better with less’. It sounds good, almost relaxing, like an advert for an organic yoghurt. These are expressions that generate passive hope in the listener, just like others such as: ‘they’ll come up with something’, ‘someone will think of something’, ‘the politicians are working on it’, ‘let’s not catastrophise, it’s not that bad’, etc. The problem is that the ‘less’ is rarely made explicit. It is disguised under with a ‘more’: more free time, more universal services, more care, more deliberative democracy. The result is an all-you-can-eat political buffet: we will have fewer resources, but there is an extensive menu of rights and public services. Where will all this come from in a world with less energy and materials? It doesn’t matter; it seems that the important thing is to remain optimistic and not scare anyone. As the document clearly states, continuing with the current system is leading us into a nightmarish and barbaric situation where the worst human instincts can be unleashed, putting our lives and those of our loved ones at risk. However, real degrowth is not a fairy tale: it means giving up habitual comforts, making material sacrifices and dealing with social conflicts. And because we don’t want to talk about that —because it scares us— we turn it into a sugar-coated story, full of promises and euphemisms. And that’s where the greatest danger lies: when those fairy-tale expectations are frustrated—because they will be frustrated—people will be left in the hands of the most ferocious populism of the most reactionary sector. Then it is very likely that the friendly discourses of degrowth will be swept away by authoritarian and disingenuous proposals that will promise a return to the past in exchange for the _sacrifices_ necessary to achieve it. The risk is clear: that degrowth will remain trapped between unspoken fears and the euphemisms that disguise it. Amidst all that, in conferences we continue to split hairs and to draft epic declarations, as if change could be achieved without any struggle and with online assemblies. The most honest thing would be to stop sanitising the message so much and to recognise what degrowth will really mean. The good and the bad. Perhaps only then can we talk seriously and go forward in the right direction, avoiding the worst consequences of continuing on the path of the current system. Maia Koenig. Click to rate this post! [Total: 0 Average: 0] You must sign in to vote

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Nov 07, 2025 - Professors Jun Borras, Esteve Corbera, Ian Scoones and Anna Tsing, who lecture and conduct research at universities in the Netherlands, Spain, the UK and Denmark,...

@[email protected] Which is why climate safety isn't just about energy descent + stopping burning fossil fuels, but also about protecting and restoring forests, grasslands, wetlands, wetlands and the ocean biosphere. Without sinks we are sunk. (Ooh I just made a slogan!)

A debate is in progress between alternative strategy prescriptions for degrowth: ecosocialism vs. horizontalism.

A debate is in progress between alternative strategy prescriptions for degrowth: ecosocialism vs. horizontalism.