Abstract
According to Eurostat, property prices across the 27 members of the EU surged by 47% between 2010 and 2022, while rents increased by 18% during the same period. To mitigate the housing crisis, many governments have turned to social housing—affordable housing that is either government-owned or regulated—as a solution. This paper seeks to answer the following question: Why has Vienna adopted significantly more generous income thresholds for social housing eligibility compared to Berlin? In 2024, the highest income threshold for a four-person household to receive a residential entitlement certificate in Berlin (€57,640) was nearly identical to the threshold for a single-person household in Vienna (€57,600), illustrating a stark contrast in policy. The findings reveal that historical legacies, cultural attitudes, interest group dynamics, and issue framing play pivotal roles in shaping the divergent approaches to social housing in Berlin and Vienna, offering lessons for housing policy across Europe.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Zheng, Grace
(2025)
"Urban Welfare Divergence: An Analysis of the Factors Shaping Social Housing Policy in Berlin and Vienna,"
Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union:
Vol. 2025, Article 15.
Available at:
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/urceu/vol2025/iss1/15
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