Coproducing routes out of the housing emergency: A Manifesto for Just and Democratic Housing in European Cities
- Kavyashree Swamygowda
- 12 hours ago
- 3 min read
Manifesto Coordinators: Barbara Lipietz, Tim Wickson, Alessio Koliulis (DPU), Agnès Deboulet (CNRS/Paris 8), Hélène Froment (CVPT) and Alima El Bajnouni (APPUII)
In October 2025, on the eve of World Habitat Day, the Fairville Consortium worked with the Roubaix-based housing campaign group, Non à la démolition dans le quartier de l’Alma-Gare (No to demolition in the Alma-Gare neighbourhood), to co-convene a pan-European discussion on the continent’s growing housing emergency.
Sited in the Alma Gare neighbourhood of Roubaix, Lille (Hauts-de-France) metropolitan region, the event brought together grassroots housing activists, intermediary organisations, engaged academic researchers and progressive professionals from across France, Belgium, Spain, Germany, England and Croatia in a moment of collective dialogue, reflection and action.
Both the timing and the setting of the event were conducive to rich, embedded and action-orientated discussion. Temporally, taking place in a moment when the European Commission was actively soliciting inputs into the production of a first EU-wide Affordable Housing Plan, the event had a unique opportunity to orientate the weekend’s deliberation towards a collective advocacy document aimed at influencing this process.
Geographically, locating the event in Roubaix's neighbourhood of Alma Gare, a long-standing site of collective resistance to violent, displacing forms of state-led regeneration in France, provided a symbolic location in which to ground an urgent conversation around the possibility of, and constraints facing the co-development of just, ecological and democratic housing futures in Europe.
Out of the workshop emerged a set of demands and recommendations articulated around 4 key areas:
(1) Reclaiming the housing narrative – with propositions aimed at recentring affordable housing as a right and as a critical cog in more equal, democratic and ecological societies;
(2) Defending and extending access to adequate and affordable housing for all – with propositions centred around an understanding that the recognition, defence, repair and extension of successful past and present forms and practices for delivering and maintaining decent affordable housing should be the foundation for future intervention and innovation;
(3) Recognising affordable housing as a fundamental democratic issue, the erosion of which is contributing to growing inequality and disenchantment with democratic governance – with propositions focused on reframing housing design, provision and maintenance as an urgent democratic imperative;
(4) Reframing genuinely affordable housing for all as a critical pillar of transformative climate action – with propositions connecting with / building on initiatives linked to the burgeoning zero-land, zero energy and retrofit movement.
Submitted in draft form to the EU Commission as part of a compressed consultation and production process for the Affordable Housing Plan, these demands were later refined into a published Manifesto for Just and Democratic European Cities which was launched on 26 November 2025.
The Manifesto acts as both a route map towards more just, democratic and sustainable housing futures in European cities, and as a collective reference point around which to anchor ongoing scrutiny efforts, as the EU Affordable Housing Plan moves forward into adoption and implementation phases. It can be found here in English and here in French. In addition, an edited video distilling a flavour of the 2 day workshop can be found here.
The event was part of Fairville’s Dialogues in Co-production public series. The Dialogues aim to help consolidate an international community of practice interested in exploring and learning from real-life experiments addressing the growing social, spatial, environmental and political inequalities in our cities. They are open to residents, activists, academics and professionals, alongside other actors from civil society organisations and local governments.
Authors: Barbara Lipietz, Tim Wickson, Alessio Koliulis (The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, UCL)
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