Housing as a right

Since a commodity is characterised by use value and exchange value, housing is a commodity: The quality of housing defines its use value, the rent its exchange value. If the quality of housing is high and the rent low, housing can be considered decommodified – otherwise it is considered commodified.

From this perspective, housing in Vienna in the 18th and 19th centuries was extremely commodified, with high rents and low quality for most of the population.

Red Vienna (housing programme of the social democratic city government 1920-1934) created the first decommodified housing in the city with over 60,000 flats built. With a further 150,000 council flats built in the welfare state of the postwar period, housing in Vienna could be seen as a "right" more than ever before or since.

A shift to subsidised rather than council housing with higher rents and the deregulation of rents in private housing has made housing in Vienna increasingly commodified again since the 1970s.

Thesis, 2016–17