Living in Germany

A ‘human laboratory’ – this was what the township of Auroville, founded 50 years ago, was supposed to be: basic income for all, no hierarchies, all decisions based on consensus. Frederick Schulze-Buxloh has been there from the very start.

A different way to live: unconventional and whimsical ideas from Germany.

Chimbai, a Koli settlement in the heart of the Indian city of Mumbai, is over 400 years old. Even though the settlement has long become a part of the megacity, it has retained the charm of a village. Hindus and Christians live side by side, not far from the villas in Pali Hill or Andheri that belong to Bollywood stars. A walk though the old fishing village.

The building sector accounts for roughly one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions. New energy-efficient and environmentally sound construction and renovation methods are finally catching on in France.

Modern-day development projects vs. trailer parks and teepees: where the Wall once divided Berlin in half, the city's housing culture is now torn between memory and modernity, nostalgia and progress.

Making a home in a mansion, living with nature – that could sum up the philosophy of the Schloss Tonndorf community in the Thuringian Forest. Around 60 people live and work together on the idyllic historical estate.

To keep Leipzig affordable for its own residents, the city promotes alternative living and working spaces. It has now become a sort of urban laboratory experimenting with new and unusual models of collective, cooperative and solidarity-based housing.

Displacement due to rising housing prices has long been a major problem in Canada. The Montreal project Brick by Brick tries to counteract this. We spoke to the Managing Director of the project, Faiz Abhuani.

Germans prefer to rent rather than buy a flat. Our video explains why.

The German rent control law known as the “Mietpreisbremse” or literally the “rent brake” was designed to slow rising housing costs, but has not really solved the problem. In an interview, economic researcher Claus Michelsen talks about some other approaches that might rein in soaring rents.

Is the online Airbnb flat sharing platform making Berlin’s housing shortage worse? Three students analysed the data to help answer this question. And reached some surprising conclusions.

Working on a train in India, video conferencing on Skype from a beach in Thailand, enjoying an after-work apéritif in a new city every week – digital nomads make the most of the new technologies to see the world, earning their daily bread as they go.

Van Bo Le-Mentzel is an unconventional thinker. The architect became known for his simple and inexpensive self-assembly instructions for Hartz4 wooden furniture. Then he extended the idea of democratic design to dwellings, developing living accommodations on bicycle trailers and tiny houses on wheels.

Affordable housing has become scarce in many German cities, where skyrocketing rents are displacing low-income residents to the outskirts. The problem is by no means new though: In the 1970s and 1980s, people in Germany waged fierce battles against investors, building by contested building.

Being an artist in Canada’s largest city is tougher than ever. Artscape, a Toronto-based non-profit urban development organization, is developing affordable condo spaces for artists to work and live in. 

In our interview, the sociologist Ingrid Breckner talks about how housebuilding and urban development can improve integration and how conflicts in society can be avoided.
 

There are as many homeless people in the streets of Montreal as there are stories. A report on the situation of the weakest inhabitants of Canada's eastern metropolis.