A wicked problem

2019 ◽  
pp. 23-46
Author(s):  
Nick Gallent
Keyword(s):  
Structural Change ◽  
Affordable Housing ◽  
Productivity Growth ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Wicked Problem ◽  
Housing Cost ◽  
Fundamental Change ◽  
Housing Crisis ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Status

Delivering broader access to decent, affordable housing is a wicked problem – a seemingly intractable challenge that has incubated in a political space. There are numerous competing explanations of the housing cost crisis and each explanation reveals a particular political leaning and a preference for either incremental action (aimed at protecting the status quo) or deeper structural change, which would be difficult to achieve given that the housing crisis is differently experienced depending on the market position of particular groups and actors (generating divergent self-interest). This chapter unpacks the nature of the housing crisis as a wicked problem, showing how and why remedies are highly contested and single actions are unlikely to deliver the fundamental change that is needed – largely because housing has become the centre of economic gravity in many countries, owing to the financialisation of land and housing and increased reliance on asset sheet growth, as a substitute for productivity growth.

Perceiving Self-Interest: Power, Ideology, and Maintenance of the Status Quo

2005 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurie T. O’Brien ◽  
Christian S. Crandall
Keyword(s):  
Status Quo ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Status

Theatricalizing the National Housing Crisis in Mike Bartlett’s Game and Philip Ridley’s Radiant Vermin

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-68
Author(s):  
William C. Boles
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Housing Crisis ◽  
National Crisis ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
The Status ◽  
Verbatim Theatre ◽  
Great Game

AbstractSince the start of the new millennia, the words ‘national crisis’ have not been far removed from many of the plays on the British stage. The aftermath of 9/11 and the British government’s decision to aid George Bush’s Middle East invasion plans sparked plays by David Hare, Roy Williams, and the Tricycle Theatre’s The Great Game as well as verbatim theatre pieces. The Great Recession unleashed works by David Hare (again), Laura Wade, and Lucy Prebble, among others. The increasing threats of floods across Great Britain and Europe placed the crisis of climate change front and centre in plays by Mike Bartlett and Steve Waters. The housing crisis, while not as provocative a theatrical topic as the ones above, has also inspired theatrical responses, including Mike Bartlett’s Game and Philip Ridley’s Radiant Vermin, and these two works are the focus of my paper. More specifically, I will examine each playwright’s focus on the role of the homeless in regards to the housing crisis. Interestingly, both playwrights posit that the victimization of the homeless is the crucial solution to not only solving the housing crisis in Britain, but also maintaining the status quo of Britain’s affluent population.

scholarly journals LOOKING UPSTREAM: THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN AFFORDABLE HOUSING, NURSING HOME USE, AND UNMET CARE NEEDS IN THE COMMUNITY

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S155-S156
Author(s):  
Meghan Jenkins Morales ◽  
Stephanie Robert
Keyword(s):  
Nursing Home ◽  
Affordable Housing ◽  
Protective Factor ◽  
Population Aging ◽  
Community Dwelling ◽  
Housing Cost ◽  
Housing Crisis ◽  
Care Needs ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Income Model

Abstract In the U.S., population aging is coinciding with a growing affordable housing crisis. Evidence suggests that housing security contributes to health, but less is known about how affordable housing affects aging in place. We use a nationally representative sample (n=5,117) of older community-dwelling Medicare beneficiaries from the 2015 National Health and Aging Trends Study to test the association between housing cost burden (HCB) and moving to a nursing home, death, or remaining in the community by 2017. Among 2017 community-stayers (n=4,836), we also test the association between HCB and unmet care need, defined as experiencing a consequence related to 12 mobility (e.g., stayed in bed), self-care (e.g., skipped meals) and household (e.g., no clean laundry) activities. HCB is the proportion of income spent on rent or mortgage: low (<30%), moderate (30-50%), severe (≥50%), or home paid off (referent). Among nursing home movers, 26% had moderate or severe HCB in 2015 compared to 16% of community-stayers. Informed by the person-environment fit perspective, weighted stepwise regression models (multinomial and logistic) adjust for race, age, sex (Model 1), self-rated health, probable dementia (Model 2), living with others and high income (Model 3). Severe HCB is significantly associated with nursing home entry (RRR=2.66, SE=0.89) and this association is only partially mediated by health factors (RRR=2.16, SE=0.72) and resources (RRR=1.95, SE=0.64). Among community-stayers, severe HCB is significantly associated with unmet care need across all models. This study suggests that affordable housing is an important protective factor for older adults to age well in the community.

scholarly journals Preparing for Promise

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Littlepage ◽  
Teresa Clark ◽  
Logan Stout
Keyword(s):  
Structural Change ◽  
Postsecondary Education ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Not For Profit ◽  
The Status ◽  
Scholarship Program

Four-year postsecondary education institutions in Tennessee have sought systemic balance during a period of unprecedented change as a result of Tennessee Promise, a last-dollar scholarship program. The present study explored how administrators at four-year private, not-for-profit, and public-assisted postsecondary educational institutions responded to the need for structural change, as defined by Buller (2014) and Kezar (2013), through the delivery of orientation services. Investigators found that administrators reacted to anticipated change differently. Administrators who embraced the change sought to control the situation, create a culture of innovation, and seek coherence when the status quo was disrupted.

scholarly journals Working Together Differently: Addressing the Housing Crisis in Oregon

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 22-36
Author(s):  
Judith A. Ramaley
Keyword(s):  
Affordable Housing ◽  
Community Involvement ◽  
Wicked Problem ◽  
Housing Crisis ◽  
Changing Roles ◽  
Working Together ◽  
Multi Stakeholder ◽  
Investment Boom ◽  
The University ◽  
Meaningful Role

Universities are being asked to prepare our students to navigate successfully in a complex and interconnected world and to contribute to the solution of difficult problems at work and in the communities where they live. Our universities must do the same. We must adapt our approaches to education, scholarship and community involvement in order to play a meaningful role in addressing the increasingly complex and wicked problems that our communities face. The housing crisis in Portland, Oregon offers an especially important example of a wicked problem that has developed slowly, will be very costly to resolve and involves a lot of uncertainty due to unpredictable social, economic and environmental factors. In 2015, policymakers in communities throughout Oregon began talking about a housing crisis as people searching for affordable housing found themselves competing with both the growing popularity of Oregon as a place to live  and a real estate investment boom. Rents rose at a rate of $100/month and over 24,000 units were needed to meet the demand in 2015. The problem remains acute in 2016. This article uses community efforts to understand and address the housing crisis as a focus to explore the changing roles of the university in participating in and contributing to these new social networks, multi-stakeholder initiatives and collaborations.  

scholarly journals Beyond renovation: Addressing Europe’s long housing crisis in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 096977642110434
Author(s):  
Carlos Delclós ◽  
Lorenzo Vidal
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Affordable Housing ◽  
Public Spending ◽  
Housing Affordability ◽  
Housing Cost ◽  
Housing Conditions ◽  
Housing Crisis ◽  
Financial Framework ◽  
The Right ◽  
Climate Neutrality

This commentary reflects on the potential of European Union institutions to address the continent’s crisis of housing affordability, which was well underway before the COVID-19 pandemic and has been exacerbated in its wake. Despite having no direct competencies in housing policy, European Union norms and policies shape housing conditions in significant ways. The greater level of public spending on housing renovation enabled by the 2021–2027 multiannual financial framework and NextGeneration European Union funding signals a welcome shift away from austerity. However, investment alone is not enough to advance the right to housing and may even reinforce existing inequalities. Plans like the Renovation Wave and the Affordable Housing Initiative must strive not only for climate neutrality but also for housing cost and tenure neutrality. Beyond pandemic recovery plans, this commentary argues that a more thorough departure from the market-based approach underlying the European Union’s institutionality is needed to tackle the roots of the current housing problematic.

Repressive Tolerance and the “Management” of Diversity

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen D. Brookfield
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Higher Education Institutions ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Faculty Of Color ◽  
Structural Level ◽  
Fundamental Change ◽  
Institutional Power ◽  
The Status ◽  
Power And Authority

This chapter uses Herbert Marcuse's notion of repressive tolerance to examine the ways that higher education institutions manage diversity so as to ensure that the ideology of white supremacy stays in place. Instead of condemning challenge and trying to repress it head on, organizations in a society supposedly devoted to the project of becoming more open and tolerant appear to be engaged in substantive change whilst still maintaining the status quo. Repressive tolerance holds that all these measures can be taken without any fundamental change to the structures of power within the organization. Whites will still be overwhelmingly in positions of institutional power and authority and, ensnared by the ideology of white supremacy, will continue to act in racist ways. Institutions that create a diversity requirement for students often approve new courses on race and diversity and hire faculty of color to teach these. The problem is that very little changes at a deeper, structural level.

Critical Theories and Change in International Relations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annette Freyberg-Inan
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Fundamental Change ◽  
Critical Theories ◽  
The Status ◽  
Time Critical ◽  
Material Power ◽  
Hearts And Minds ◽  
Structural Inequalities

Critical theories advocate fundamental change in world politics. They attack the structural inequalities of power that maintain the status quo and are, in turn, maintained by it. Ideational power is seen to work in tandem with material power, which calls for a strategy of radical resistance that incorporates a battle for hearts and minds. One of those battlefields is the discipline of International Relations (IR) itself. This chapter begins by clarifying what critical theories in IR are and then explains why and how they problematize the notion of “peaceful change.” The changes desired by critical theories are fundamental and urgent, which imbues those theories with a level of radicalism that can justify violent means. At the same time, critical theories spotlight dimensions of power beyond the material on which material power vitally depends. This reveals possibilities for transformation by peaceful means.

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