ABSTRACT

Housing plays a significant role in impelling demand for natural resources and driving economic growth in high-income countries. Public policies, commercial prerogatives, and other inducements have encouraged construction and occupancy of ever-larger homes and this pattern has persisted in the face of decreasing household size, declining fertility, ageing populations, and increasing complexity of domestic relationships. This situation has created a perverse mismatch between available housing stocks and residential requirements. Additionally, imperatives to curtail greenhouse-gas emissions and to hasten progress on the United Nations 2030 Agenda demand new planning priorities. Building on the sufficiency turn in the field of sustainable consumption, this paper first formulates parameters for estimating an environmentally tenable and globally equitable amount of per person living area. It then highlights five emblematic cases of “space-efficient” housing. While acknowledging that prevalent spatial norms are evolving, the conclusion discusses the profound challenges of achieving a successful sustainable consumption transition.

摘要

住房在推动自然资源需求和推动高收入国家的经济增长方面发挥着重要作用。公共政策，商业特权和其他诱因鼓励建造和占用越来越大的房屋，并且这种模式在家庭规模不断缩小，生育力下降，人口老龄化以及家庭关系日益复杂的情况下仍然持续存在。这种情况在现有住房存量和住房需求之间造成了不正当的不匹配。此外，减少温室气体排放和加快《联合国2030年议程》进展的紧迫性要求新的规划优先事项。建立在可持续消费领域的充足转变的基础上，本文首先提出了用于估计人均居住面积在环境上可承受且在全球范围内公平的数量的参数。然后重点介绍了五个“空间节约型”住房的标志性案例。在承认流行的空间规范正在演变的同时，结论讨论了实现成功的可持续消费转型所面临的深刻挑战。