Changes in Housing Discourse in Four Czech Municipalities. Will Young People Get Support?

Abstract

In post-communist countries, the early years of housing policy after 1989 were characterised by the withdrawal of the state. Municipalities played an important role in the housing privatisation process in the Czech Republic. Thirty years later, a global boom in housing prices occurred in major urban centres. Young people are facing the problem of decreasing housing affordability. The analyses of the programme statements of electoral parties and coalition agreements in selected regional centres reveals the issue’s increasing saliency as well as a change in the overall discourse of housing. Moreover, local path dependencies and ways of bridging ideological differences in a coalition are explained. Electoral programmes tend to focus on young families rather than young people in general. In the crisis of housing affordability, those groups that have something to offer cities are preferred in party programme statements.