Social housing — homes reserved for lower- and middle-income households — has recently become something of a cause célèbre among left-leaning North American housing advocates. Given that, where better to look for guidance than in France? The SRU Law (Loi Solidarité et Renouvellement Urbain, or Solidarity and Urban Renewal) was adopted 20 years ago, requiring many French municipalities to increase their social housing stock to 20%, and later 25%, of all housing. The law has been successful, especially in Paris, but many urban areas continue to hold out, preferring to pay a fee to the national government rather than meet their social housing targets. We’re joined by Professor Magda Maaoui of the University of Cergy-Paris to discuss the law, the “outlaw municipalities” who flout it, and France’s inspiring progress in increasing housing production and reducing housing segregation and the concentration of poverty.

Show notes:

• Maaoui, M. (2021). The SRU Law, twenty years later: evaluating the legacy of France’s most important social housing program. Housing Studies, 1-23.
• Acolin, A. (2021). The public sector plays an important role in supporting French renters. Brookings Institution.
• Freemark, Y. (2019). Doubling housing production in the Paris region: A multi-policy, multi-jurisdictional response. International Journal of Housing Policy, 1-15.
• La Haine, 1995.
• Les Misérables, 2019.
• French government summary of SRU law (translatable into English).
• UCLA Housing Voice, episode 13 — discussion of state planning mandates in the U.S., including Massachusetts 40B.