Author: Adam Clare

Push: A Documentary on the Housing Crisis

Push from WG Film on Vimeo.

When housing prices collapsed in the USA a decade ago corporations saw an opportunity to buy a basic human need and profit off of it. Multiple investment firms bought up cheap property (in some cases they used taxpayer money to do so) that they then turned around and rented to the very people who lost their homes. This led to accelerating inequality and many other societal problems.

The documentary Push (trailer above) explores the history of the housing crisis we’re in and how cities around the world are reacting to it. It’s worth watching if only to understand the situation around us. Hopefully as we bail out poorly performing companies during this decade’s economic claptrap we’ll support companies that make the life easier for people instead of the opposite.

You can ask Leilani Farha, the UN Special Rapporteur on housing questions right now about anything housing related.

Housing prices are skyrocketing in cities around the world. Incomes are not. PUSH sheds light on a new kind of faceless landlord, our increasingly unliveable cities and an escalating crisis that has an effect on us all. This is not gentrification, it’s a different kind of monster.

The film follows Leilani Farha, the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, as she’s traveling the globe, trying to understand who’s being pushed out of the city and why. “I believe there’s a huge difference between housing as a commodity and gold as a commodity. Gold is not a human right, housing is,” says Leilani.

Watch it here.

Denmark Bans Bailouts to Businesses Paying Dividends and Using Tax Shelters

Every decade we need to bailout businesses so capitalism can keep functioning. In the last bailout, caused by American bankers, western countries gave banks corporate welfare cheques that went from the banks to the elite shareholders through dividends. This clearly didn’t work out well for 90% of people as the last decade saw a massive increase in inequality, tax cuts for the rich, and no behavioural correction from an unethical corporate elite. Thankfully, some countries have learned from that corporate welfare mistake and this time around when they give companies tax payer money they’ll put limits on what can be done. Denmark will only be giving corporate welfare to companies registered in Denmark (and thus paying Danish taxes) and ban them from paying dividends to shareholders until the money is paid back to the government.

Hopefully every nation follows Denmark’s example.

The government also said that companies which pay out dividends, buy back own shares or are registered in tax havens won’t be eligible for any of the aid programs, which now amount to a total of 400 billion kroner, when including loans and guarantees.

Finance Minister Nicolai Wammen said in an interview with broadcaster TV2, that Denmark, which is rated AAA, plans to finance new measures partially by issuing government bonds.

“We have a stronger position than many other countries and we are able to borrow money to get through this situation in the best way possible,” Wammen said.

Read more.

After this Pandemic Cities will be More Resilient

bus

Pandemic and other major health issues have hit cities before and they’ll hit cities again in the future. Each time this happens cities find new designs and solutions for the next time it occurs, and this year is no different. Urban planners and politicians are already working on ways to ensure that the next pandemic won’t be so disruptive. This means more green space for gardens, better transportation, and other things that are good (and I’ve been writing about here for over a decade).

Cities will aim to become more self-reliant and resilient, with a focus on transport, energy and food security, he added.

More than two-thirds of the global population is forecast to live in urban areas by 2050 – up from 56% today, according to the United Nations.

The coronavirus crisis would not be the first time that an epidemic has led to changes in city planning, research shows.

The cholera outbreaks of the 1830s led to better sanitation in London and elsewhere, while the tuberculosis epidemic in New York in the early 20th century paved the way for improved public transit systems and housing regulations.

Read more.

A List can Cut Down on Food Waste at Home

Smart people have been following the advice from health officials to limit trips outside the home to slow the spread of COVID-19, which means bigger grocery trips. This sounds innocuous until you realize that since this is a time a lot of people are regularly cooking at home they don’t know how to manage their filled fridges. Produce goes bad faster than expected and people might by stuff with good intentions only to forget about it.

How do we deal with this increase of potential food waste? Make a list.

Keeping your fridge stocked without much of its contents ending up in your compost bin (note: this is also a great time to get a compost bin if you don’t already have one) isn’t hard, but it does take a modicum of effort. To that end, I made up a very basic, fly-by-night system to organize yourself, your groceries, and your cooking. You can basically modify it however works for you! The idea is just to keep track of what you buy and when it will go bad using lists, and keeping that information in plain sight on your refrigerator.

The system is extremely low-tech, and it’s based on a series of lists: picking out a few exciting things you want to try cooking before you go to the grocery store, putting ingredients for those meals on your grocery list, writing down when all the food items you’ve purchased will start to go bad, and then making a cooking schedule to accommodate all those (approximate — we’re all guessing) expiration dates. I suggest putting these lists in plain sight, like on your fridge, to keep your meal plan front-of-mind.

Read more.

The Demoscene Added to UNESCO Cultural Heritage

computer screen

Here’s something you probably didn’t expect to hear this week form Finland: they’ve added Demoscene to the UNESCO list of intangible cultural artifacts. According the Finnish Heritage Agency Demoscene is “an international community focused on making demos, real-time audiovisual performances that creatively combine programming, graphics and sound.” Finland beat everyone else to the punch to get demoscenes listed under their purview – good for them!

This is a fun reminder of the nifty cultural practices that exist all around the world.

Jukka O. Kauppinen, Finnish Journalist and demoscene veteran since the 1980s, is happy: “Demoskene inspires to create, express and to do. While it revolves around digital devices, at its core demoscene is communal, connecting people and groups across borders. The inclusion of demoskene on the Finnish listing of intangible cultural heritage is an important indication that it is still possible to birth and grow completely new cultures and content, even in the digital realm. And demoscene is one that still rapidly evolves, changes and creates new stories to remember.”

The fact that the Finnish application was created by the Finnish demoscene culture in support by a wide range of institutions and partners shows, how connected and relevant the demoscene is in Finnish digital culture until today. A big thank you from us go to the communities and drivers behind the Finnish submission, namely Satu Haapakoski, Heikki Jungman, Jukka O. Kauppinen and Markku Reunanen, supported by many more.

Read more.