Vienna's Radical Idea? Affordable Housing For All
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN points to it in housing-cost threads as the standard example of government-built housing keeping rents down.
What it is
A Bloomberg mini-documentary on how Vienna keeps housing affordable through large-scale public and social housing. It presents the city as a model strategy for others.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 4 different months, 2021 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Recommends m_ke · 2022-07 · on “Manhattan rents cross $5k threshold for first time”
Which of these "affordable" options are you too good for: [LINK] Also recommend checking out this video about Vienna [this video]
Recommends readonthegoapp · 2023-05 · on “Imagine a Renters' Utopia. It Might Look Like Vienna.”
i watched a couple youtubes over the past few months on this -- if you supply at least some public housing, it can have an outsized ability to keep rents down: Bloomberg Originals: Vienna's Radical Idea? Affordable Housing For All [this video] About Here: The Non-capitalist Solution to the Housing Crisis (indy urban planning-types out of Vancouver, BC) [LINK]
Recommends toomuchtodo · 2023-11 · on “The US Housing Market Has Become an Impossible Mess”
Vienna is a great example. [this video] (Youtube: Vienna's Radical Idea? Affordable Housing For All) [LINK] (Youtube: Does Vienna Have the World's Best Council Housing?)
Recommends toomuchtodo · 2023-12 · on “US homelessness up 12% from 2022, hits highest level since 2007”
Government can build if private industry will not. If you argue "we can only fix this with the private sector and private investment", welp, we tried that and we're plain ol' fucked at the moment. Vienna is a great example. [this video] (Youtube: Vienna's Radical Idea? Affordable Housing For All) [LINK] (Youtube: Does Vienna Have the World's Best Council Housing?)
Cites xx511134bz · 2021-09 · on “How to make housing more affordable”
Vienna is doing a nice job, building new "old town" areas with 75% affordable units. [Bloomberg] Vienna's Radical Idea? Affordable Housing For All [this video]
Cites pastacacioepepe · 2023-01 · on “Why a global recession is inevitable in 2023”
> To lower house prices would require heavy deregulation of the housing market There's no actual requirement for deregulation. Austrians made prices affordable and improved housing quality with public intervention, and it worked well[0]. I yet have to see an housing deregulation experiment that worked. .0: [this video]
Cites jmyeet · 2023-08 · on “How South Korea’s Birth Rate Dropped Below Japan’s”
Yes there are restrictions on supply but you need to look at why for the things you mention. Zoning doesn't happen in a vacuum. It's implemented by politicians. Why? What forces are pushing for that? Is it the NIMBYs? Maybe. But money talks in politics. So what political interests are pushing for restrictive zoning? Why? The real problem here is that housing became financialized (like every aspect of our lives). People see their $300k house go up in value to $600k and think they've made money. But have they? You still need a place to live. If every house that cost $300k now costs $600k, you still only have one house unit of wealth. So what have you really gained? One extension of this is you
Cites jmyeet · 2026-01 · on “Left in the cold: Study finds most renters shut out of energy-saving upgrades”
There is always going to be an adversarial relationship between landlords and renters. Make no mistake: that we allow this to happen is state violence. Why? Because we are allowing individuals and corporations to deny housing to people by raising prices to make it unaffordable. We even allow them to collude [1]. The only solution to this that demonstrably works is for the state to provide a significant amount of housing to keep the private secotr honest [2]. Everything else is just propping a system that steals from the poor to give to the already rich. [1]: [LINK] [2]: [this video]