https://www.decroissance-poc.org/Journee-de-reflexion-le-15-dec

The ideas of housing for degrowth will be presented in Toulouse on the 15th december (in french)

Notre prochaine journée  de réflexion aura lieu le samedi 15 décembre sur le Thème "Mettre en  pratique la décroissance". Venez nombreux !Nous aurons la chance d’avoir avec nous  :

Pierre Thiesset : journaliste et écrivain, co-rédacteur du livre Vivre la simplicité
volontaire (L’échappée, 2014).
François Schneider : chercheur, écrivain, co-fondateur de la "maison de la décroissance" ("Can Decreix" en Catalan) à Cerbère. Co-auteur du livre La décroissance, dix questions pour en débattre (La Découverte, 2010).

La journée aura lieu à l’Estancabra, 42 Rue des Blanchers, 31000 Toulouse

10h Accueil
10h30 Conférence et réflexion collective : Réflexions sur la dualité action-réflexion
12h Repas convivial
14h : Conférence et réflexion collective : Éthique et simplicité volontaire
15h30 : Conférence et réflexion collective : Tour d’horizon des formes d’action
17h30 : Conférence et réflexion collective : Vie familiale, vie professionnelle, vie relationnelle : discerner l’action.Infos : contact@decroissance-poc.org ou 06 48 00 21 08

On the 25th we had a talk on housing for degrowth at Can Masdeu, a mythic squat in Barcelona. It was the occasion to bring the link between housing for degrowth and gender, as the talk was taking place on the Sunday "PIC" on a day against gender violence. The presentation was mainly in Spanish. In spite of the early time, we were 30 people. We had perspectives of Claudio Cattaneo explaining all the links between squatting and degrowth, and Nina Turull, a young professional ready to get involved in degrowth urbanistic projects after frustrations in the urbanistic growth reality.

It was interesting to explore the reenforcing effects of growth of suposedly "women liberating" technics, with individualism, size of houses, with the non-sharing of housing tasks... On the contrary housing for degrowth is also about a renegociation of roles, of social relations which can lead to a proper tackling of gender issues. There were very inspiring discussions by participants motivated to start housing projects. There was a great proposal to think of some types of housing swaps at long term, not just for holidays.

On the 21th I gave a course at the master of political ecology, degrowth and environmental justice, on housing and narratives. We entered in the great exercice of building housing degrowth narratives together.

On tuesday 27 nov, we had a presentation of the book at RMIT. The talk was introduced by Joan Martinez-Alier, with Claudio Cattaneo who explained about all the great potentials of using empty buildings, showing that some of the limitations, for example that renovations are not always durable, are linked to the insecurity created by the legal context. Mara Ferreri explained how, in the case of Heygate estate demolition in london, the growth context made policy makers disregard several studies showing that renovation was actually more cost-effective. Again in the discussion came the importance of including policy makers in the building of positive degrowth narratives.

20 participants in the small village of Portbou! Thanks to the great work of Natalia and Swen of the Simmelian association. Interdisciplinarity, a guiding idea of Simmel, is key for housing and urbanism for degrowth. We are litterally building a new indisciplinary context with the reenforcing of actions in differents areas: from the justice fight for minimal housing rights, to the political support for usage rights on empty buildings, to the support of sharing of houses. More justice leads to less frustration which supports happiness in smaller spaces, which is helped by best quality ecological renovations, and right level of compactness which enables to share all sorts of goods and services: like washing machines, bicycles, community supported agriculture, local shops, bulk purchasing, cafés, cinema, feasts, social centers. All this supported by cooperatives to support social housing, and anti speculative actions and policies!

Thanks a lot to Carla too also who spread the words, and who does a very inspiring work of motivation and "convivialism" in the village of Portbou. People that are full of optimism and inspiration can really make a difference in a village. The presentation was made in Catalan, as everybody could understand it.

Back to Can Decreix full of flower. The iddylic weather made it perfect to cook chick peas on the solar ovens.

Less perfect is the recent pollution of the coast by tarballs, there is no place preserved...

We arrived in Rome, the place of so many informal initiatives in the sector of housing.

We had two event. One at Puzzle, an occupied social center. This talk was part of the training the activists from this burgeonning centre, it included a large public.

The second talk was at Citta de l'Altre Economia, an old slaughter center transformed into a large center for alternative economy. We had an amazing space to debate with local experts in the field of housing from the university. Thanks to the great event organised by Laura of the Decrescita Felice of Rome, a very active local group on degrowth.

We could benefit of the participation of the following respondants: Sandra Annunziata (Urbanist, Roma Tre), Marco Burrascano (Architect,  Roma Tre), Nadia Nur (Sociologist,ISTAT), Luca Salvatici (Economist, Roma  Tre). The talks were moderated by Mario Cerasoli.

you can see the video of the talk here

Karl, the organiser and author in our book, introduced degrowth. We had three amazing respondants, Nadia Caruso (scholar in housing planning from Politecnico), Dario Padovan (Sociologist) and Alberto Vanolo (Geographer) from the University of Turin.

In the evening we had an nice events with friends of the local group of degrowth in Turin. Nice discussions, and food sharing, the conviviality transforms a space!!

One of the important way to use space is for artists. We had an amazing visit of an enormous artistic squat called cavallerizza.

It was amazing to meet Hans Widmer, the author of Bolo Bolo, in Zurich, as well many other inspiring publications, and initiator of many large housing project with the association Neustart Schweiz.

Hans Widmer developed a housing model, where neighborhoods ("bolos") are central. In his publications he describes a urban utopia in great details. You could say, "OK, this is very beautiful but it is not at all realistic".  

But… the model has actually been implemented. We visited Kraftwerk1 and a few other projects. Ok the reality is not exactly like the model but as says Hans, « the reality proves that you are wrong, we have to differentiate between the map and the reality”.

There are some things that are just like the model. The Bolo city block look very similar to the drawing of Hans. Hans describes is his books the importance of being able to wander in pyjama in the Bolo and go to the microzentrum. Well indeed we saw people in pyjamas. We indeed stayed in one of these guestrooms as hospitality is an important value, beautiful. There is the DIY bar and the collective washing machine room. You have a space downstairs with independent small businesses: a restaurant, a bicycle workshop, hairdresser, a training center, a shop with lots of organic products, including vegetables from the cooperative.

And then above you have apartments that suits different preferences. Some are for singles, others for couples. There is a collective with 12 people in 14 rooms. There is a rule that you cannot have more than 2 rooms more than persons. And several collectives of different sizes.  They have a piece of land linked to the Bolo.  

A Swiss parking law,  that obliges developers to have a certain number of parkings per inhabitants has been creating some problems to this carfree project: they had to invest in car parkings against their will... and then put stones on them to avoid having people parking on them. The good thing is that this law has now been abolished and the last car parks will become bicycle parking. Although Hans is a convinced pedestrian, and complains sometimes about bikes ;), it is nice to see that the cooperative is in fact full of bicycles.  

Newcomers, that become members of the community, can apply when a housing gets free. But the priority will be given to members that have interesting projects to offer to the cooperative. If you like to cook for the collective you have a good chance to be chosen. 40 % of inhabitants are non-Swiss. Some apartments are kept for people in economic difficulties and for refugees. This is really open-localism put in practice.

What are the differences with the initial project? Well first it is not as big as planned. Hans dreamed to have 500 people. There are « only » 250 people in Karftwerk 1.  

The piece of land for agriculture is not 50 ha but 2 ha of intensive vegetable production. And the agricultural cooperative is independent from the housing cooperative. They had to adapt to the legislation that forbids housing cooperatives to do agriculture (this prevents large business cooperatives to develop their tentacles a bit too easily). Three professional farmers are hired full time. 2/3 of work is done by members. For a big bag of vegetables, suitable for 10 people, you need to work 20 « green beans », or say 10 days. Sometimes work is done collectively. This is the case for the digging which is a great binding collective moment. Last year, as was telling Hans, they had an African band playing as everybody digged together at the sound of the music.

There are also many more children than planned, around 80. The cooperative is full of children toys and children bicycles. « The people the most radical about not having children were the first to have children ». There is a kinder garten in the cooperative, but it is actually managed by the city. Most children go somewhere else, as they find good that children find their own way.

Interesting is the case of a terrain next to the cooperative, where the city had planned to build a gigantic stadium. The project has been rejected several times by some « votation » (vote), which offered the last 10 years a beautiful natural zone to give space for several tiny house, a small wagenburg and yurt, permaculture gardens, children play ground made by children. This space is a sort of paradise for all sorts of composting techniques. Even if the cooperative prefers the use of biogas, supposedly more ecological as it produces gas.

Books are shared, there is a collective library. There are common rooms for meetings that you can reach without putting your coat on.

We visited several cooperatives. One called Kalkbreite that was founded in 2014 above a tram station. You can look at trams from the restaurant though beautiful windows. Above the trams is the courtyard of the cooperative.  

We also visited a cooperative build with renovation of existing old houses of an ancient block of the city centre. Obviously it is not possible, neither desirable to demolish and rebuild all existing buildings. Hans showed us a beautiful realisation in the centre of Zurich.

We had a beautiful event in L200 a central place for events, where researchers and all sorts of people involved in the cooperative took part. There were around 25 participants. There was a discussion if we should focus on tiny houses or on collective housing. In my opinion tiny houses cannot, and should not, become the standards. However they are part of the system of alternatives that we need to propose in front of growth/closure housing narratives. Tiny houses or collective housing, countryside alternatives or city ones can all be co-opted and perverted in the present growth system. This is fundamental to propose a new housing narratives, in the frame of degrowth, and get organized !

Anitra went to the growth in transition conference, she could present important critics of growth within this event. She talked in a session on the tension between investment on green or brown energy. She took the opportunity to talk about degrowth, and that it is not so much the kind of investment that is important but that we need to reduce investments.

I did not go. First they do not accept bicycles, and I had no speaking slot, so i took the opportunity to let go, this is also degrowth :)

Venezia is a living utopia. An enormous pedestrian city, a city fundamentally made for humans. A place where meet in the street, where many associations are active, where you experience the calm and beauty of the only real carfree city of the "North".

But this paradize is also visited by 2000000 tourists per year. Each day there are more tourists than Venecians. Many flats are transformed into hotels, airBnBs. Almost impossible to find a place to rent. The few shops, which are not selling "souvenirs", are expensive and rare. Many buildings are simply kept empty and remain in bad state.

But associations are active https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/sep/13/occupy-venice-alternative-to-death-of-city-activists-tourism

We are heading to the event in this city full of empty buildings...

After visiting the city of Trieste, we had a rich event at Espace M'old, an antiquary that organises many events. No diffusion was really made, but the topic attracted many participants as the information on the event got passed-on from person to person. 50 persons were present including a squelleton and a few dolls :)

Great meeting and discussions on housing for degrowth at Kucha, an amazing renovated commercial venue in an industrial zone, that got transformed into an innovative vegan, local food meeting place, full of art pieces. The collective of SURF working on this project Kucha give a lesson of all the possibilities there is in recycling commercial/industrial buildings for activities other than profit trading. Here the place links also with humanitarian issues, bringing food for homeless people, in the same time than providing an opening into high quality vegan food to all sorts of employees of this industrial area. They also develop innovative technics of plant-based lacto-fermentation in the basement.

Busy day at Brno. I picked delicious local apples in the morning (not the untasty ones you find in supermarkets). At 14:00 we gave a course at Brno university on housing for degrowth at the department of environmental studies with degrowth oriented academic. Considering the increasing price of housing, it is tempting to try to live on agricultural land, sadly going into urban spawl, but be ecological. The events were organised by Jan Blazek who is soon finishing his PhD on eco-communities, studying how to combine ecological/social goals and economic sustainability.

In the evening we had a presentation at Sibir (see also facebook page), an old movie theatre from 1930, recently recuperated as a great community center. It is a place where concerts and all sorts of talks and political events take place. A vegan meal was served at an open price by another project called Tri Ocasci ("three tails"). The housing prices steadily increase in Brno which motivates participants to organise with each others to counteract this trend. There has been a video made by Marta of our presentation.

Speculation is one of the important reasons for price increase. It also keeps the houses in a shape suitable to the housing market creating a blocage of the socio-ecological transformation. Legislation could certainly do something about this specific issue: let us suppose that we would not be able to sell a house if it did had flushing toilets or fossil heating.

One of the many reasons for the increase of prices is the renting of flats for tourists. Sometimes these flats are left empty most of the year outside the tourist season. Renting flats is wrontly called a sharing economy, this has nothing to do sharing as it is simply a renting economy. As we had this discussion, when we talk of sharing in housing we mean flat-sharing, house sharing, co-housing, sharing of washing between neighbors etc. It needs to be differenciated with commodification, creating markets relation instead of convivial relations. See the article on the issue by Giorgos Kallis.

The presentation was followed by a concert by a electric gipsy band that regularly rehearse in this venue, great energy but a bit loud for joining with my unplugged clarimella :)

The next day we had a nice meal at Tri Ocasci where we met Nadia Johanisova and her companion. Nadia has been pionneer in Czech Republic on the issue of degrowth. Her work has focussed very much on the issue of eco-social cooperatives. She believes in the demonstration of alternatives. Her companion believes rather in convincing people of the gravity of the ecological situation. Both have a very complementary approach.

What else do you need? Really nice train ride from Budapest to Brno. The train is just perfect, confortable, with tables, electricity access, and with an accessible prices for all. You have a convivial bar-restaurant. The train does not wait for border controls. But the best of all is that the train has a beautiful bicycle space in every wagon! with direct exit (not like in France). They are ready for an important increase in use of bikes and trains, the train-bicycle revolution! As you can see on the photo, the space can also become very cosy when it is used to relax and make massages :)

The Budapest conference on degrowth was where we started to plan for the book housing for degrowth.

More than 80 people joined at Kelet Cafe in Budapest, "Housing for Degrowth: let us rethink together the city". I introduced the talk by playing a bit of clarimella, a sort of "degrowed clarinet", which introduced a nice atmosphere. It was a great public participatory discussion, including presentation of different amazing local projects - plantation of fruit trees, organised by Paloma, Cargonomia (transport bikes in the city), Cyclonomia (bike repair workshop), a system of shared cargo bikes etc. For more details of the event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1712797612159406/

At noon of the same day we had a more studious discussion at CEU university with around 20 researchers, explaining the ideas of the book, and the importance of degrowth narratives, in particular in housing, in front of growth/closure narratives. https://www.facebook.com/events/291474838135222/