Entrepreneurial social housing. The role of social enterprise in urban regeneration

Soon after WWII, when housing shortage was a structural problem, both in the USA and Europe national states directly intervened in the provision of affordable housing and the implementation of urban renewal projects. This trend in national policies started to change during the economic downturn of the late 1970s. Under the impetus of neo-liberal politics, housing authorities started to assume an even more autonomous and business-oriented foundation. In the US and the UK, Housing Associations proliferated and became the core actors in the provision of social housing. Actually, providing affordable housing entails not only the supply of dwellings at below-rent but also of a series of services able to satisfy social demand. As it might be expected, housing and urban development problems are linked to one another. Current environmental and economic urban situations call for an integrated approach to housing demand. In order to arrange urban space, both the private and the public, to the social dynamics of contemporary cities, it is necessary to rely on mixed use redevelopment projects within which balanced solutions in terms of economic viability, social integration, energy efficiency and urban design have to be sought.