As Sudan’s brutal civil war rages on, more than 12 million people have been displaced — deepening an already devastating protection and humanitarian crisis. In this episode of The Humans in Human Righ...

_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_

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