Before the 2000s, French real estate developers were prohibited from building social housing. Today, they build more than half of it. Julie Pollard shares how two seemingly unrelated policies came together to make this rapid shift possible.

Show notes:

• Pollard, J. (2023). The political conditions of the rise of real-estate developers in French housing policies. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 41(2), 274-291.
• Read about the Clichy-Batignolles eco-district (in English).
• Episode 20 of UCLA Housing Voice with Magda Maaoui (2022), on France’s social housing production and the SRU Law.
• Phillips, S. (2024). Lessons from California's Homekey Program: Adding Affordable Housing by Buying Market-Rate Apartment Buildings. UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies.