More than half of the residents of Vienna, a city of about 2 million, live in some form of subsidized housing, like the one in this photo. Investing in housing—at a pace of about 12,000 units built or refurbished every year—is a basic part of the municipality’s role there, according to an interesting CBC report.
One big thing European cities like Vienna and Amsterdam do is aggressively acquire land when it comes up for sale, through “right-to-buy” policies that give them first dibs. Owning the land allows municipalities to mandate that housing in key areas be kept affordable for a century or more, as opposed to much shorter periods typically required in Canada.
The governments also provide substantial, long-term, low-interest loans to the non-profits that build and manage the stock of affordable housing. Those investments help keep them accountable — and make them stable enough to keep investing in more buildings. You can read the story here and learn more about Vienna’s housing here.