Growing in Social Housing
December 4, 2008
There was a not-too-pretty block of social housing in Dublin, not too far from Stephen’s Green which has recently been replaced with more modern and sustainable social housing. Interesting to urban farmers is to note the consideration given to growing plants in the world of apartments and duplexes.
These blocks include:
- Rainwater collection for watering plants
- Glazed shutters on balconies which turns them into winter gardens
- Built-in Scandinavian-style planters on the balconies
- Fruit trees in common areas
As with all innovations in housing there are a number of things to consider, not least the relative cost of installing such measures which may or may not be used. So whether this is a useful and/or cost-effective thing to do remains to be seen.
From what I can see, none of the items mentioned above are be too expensive, so that begs the question as to why we don’t see similar features in developments for more affluent sections of society.
For me one of the incentives to grow herbs and other food is to save money, selfish as that may be. Yet, I feel that this aspect is often sidelined in favour or more purist notions – carbon footprint, supporting local produce, organic food, etc. I wonder is there a correlation between personal finance and willingness to produce one’s own food. If there were, perhaps starting with families and sections of society who can greatly benefit from economising their food budget is a good way to go.
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I wonder whether we’ll see a divide between post-crunch and pre-crunch properties, particularly apartments, and particularly in a world where developers must be thinking to themselves, ‘if I build, I’d better build bloody good units or they’ll be stuck there lying empty’.
It’s a short step from there to pre-crunch units being stigmatized by prospective purchases, for their lack of social infrastructure, quality, space, and other evidence of thoughtfulness, such as what you’ve mentioned above.
An important factor for apartments may then become not just the age, but pre- or post-Crunch, as a proxy for whether it was a well thought property or not.