Why so moderate? Understanding millennials’ views on the urban housing affordability crisis in the post-socialist context of the Czech Republic

Abstract

The housing affordability crisis is one of the most pressing issues in urban centres around the globe, affecting especially young adults. Some theorists have in response begun calling for the provision of more public housing or less housing financialisation (free market). The goal of our article is to demonstrate the housing attitudes of Czech millennials towards state interventions that are designed to address the decline in housing affordability, using a quantitative attitude survey and a series of qualitative interviews. The results of our study reveal that young Czechs are sceptical about increased public housing provision as a solution, and on the whole their views align more with the neoliberal ideas, the very ideas that are criticised by critical theorists. We show that there are contextual reasons that explain why young Czechs are not calling for radical policy change - reasons such as familialism, which facilitates the intergenerational transmission of norms, habitus, and resources within families; the legacy of socialism and society transformation; a belief that more redistribution of resources could be unfair; and stronger support for competition, individualism and right-wing politics. There is also, however, some inconsistency and uncertainty in their attitudes, especially between their general worldview and their suggestions for concrete action. This study contributes to the research in the field of youth studies that looks at young people’s strategies for dealing with the problem of decreasing housing affordability, and to the discussions surrounding diverse housing policy responses to a common global challenge.