Rising rents are the social issue of our time. Many politicians have said this sentence in recent years. And it’s true too. Rents are rising steadily, especially in the big cities, entire districts are gentrified and people are displaced. The question of whether you will soon no longer be able to afford your own apartment is one of the greatest worries in metropolitan areas.
The Green politician Florian Schmidt also sees the housing issue as the social issue of our time. As a building councilor for the Berlin district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, he fights against the sell-out of the city. In his new book We’re bringing the city back: How we can defend ourselves against the maddening of rent and land speculation Florian Schmidt shows which ways there could be out of the rent crisis.
Friday-In a podcast, editor Benjamin Knödler spoke with Florian Schmidt about what gentrification means for a district, the strength of the rent movement and the question of what housing that is geared to the common good might look like.
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