The solution to the housing problem, then, is not moralism, but the creation of an alternative residential logic. Exhorting for-profit real estate companies to act differently in the name of creating a less vicious housing system is pointless. Housing problems are not the result of greed or dishonesty. They result from the structural logic of the current housing system. Alternative, decommodified models of residential development must therefore be created. Far from stopping new construction, cities need more new decommodified dwellings, such as public or cooperative housing. A proper understanding of the housing crisis today requires an account of its commodification. Making real progress on housing problems requires developing concrete alternatives to it.
David Madden & Peter Marcuse, In Defense of Housing: The Politics Of Crisis
