Pedro Sánchez is the prime minister of Spain. It’s no secret the world is going through a time of turbulence. The principles that held it together for decades are under threat; disinformation is spreading freely; and even the foundations of the welfare state — which brought us the longest period of prosperity in human history — are now being questioned by a far-right transnational movement challenging our democratic systems’ ability to deliver collective solutions and social justice. In the face of this attack, Europe stands as a wall of resistance. The EU has been  — and must remain — a shelter for the values that uphold our democracies, our cohesion and our freedom. But let’s be honest, values don’t put a roof over your head. And at any rate, these values are fading fast in the face of something as concrete and urgent as the lack of affordable housing. If we do not act, Europe risks becoming a shelter without homes. The figures are clear: The housing crisis is devastating the standard of living across Europe. Between 2010 and 2025, home prices rose by 60 percent, while rental prices went up by nearly 30 percent. In countries like Estonia or Hungary, prices have tripled. In densely populated or high-tourism cities, families can spend over 70 percent of their income on rent. And individuals with stable jobs in Madrid, Lisbon or Budapest can no longer afford to live where they work or where they grew up. Meanwhile, 93 million Europeans — that’s one in five — are living at risk of poverty or social exclusion. This isn’t just the perception of experts or institutions: Around half of Europeans consider housing to be an “urgent and immediate problem.” Housing, which should be a right, has become a trap that shapes peoples’ present, suffocates their future and endangers Europe’s cohesion, economic dynamism and prosperity. The roots of this problem may differ from country to country, but two facts are undeniable and shared throughout our continent: First, the need for more houses, which we’ve been falling behind on for years. For nearly two decades now, residential construction in the EU has fallen short of demand. After a period of strong growth in the 1990s and early 2000s, the 2008 financial crisis triggered a collapse in housing investment, and the sector never fully recovered. The pandemic only widened this gap, halting permits, delaying materials and worsening labor shortages that further stalled construction. Second, and just as urgent, is that we must ensure both new construction and existing housing stock serve their true purpose: upholding the fundamental right to decent and affordable housing. Because as we continue to fall short of guaranteeing this basic right, homes are increasingly being diverted to fuel speculation or serve secondary uses like tourist rentals. In fact, according to preliminary European Parliament data, there were around 4 million short-term rental listings on digital platforms across the EU in 2025. In my home country, cities like Madrid and València have witnessed the displacement of residents from their historic centers, which are transforming into theme parks for tourists. For nearly two decades now, residential construction in the EU has fallen short of demand. | David Zorrakino/Getty Images At the same time, housing is increasingly being treated as a financial asset instead of a social good. In Ireland, investment funds have acquired nearly half of all newly built homes since 2017, while in Sweden, institutional investors now control 24 percent of all private rental apartments. Just as no one would dare justify doubling the price of a bowl of rice for a starving child, we cannot accept turning the roofs meant to shelter people into a vehicle for speculation — and citizens overwhelmingly share in this view. Seventy-one percent of Europeans believe that the places they live would benefit from more controls on property speculation, like taxing vacant rentals or regulating short-term rentals. This is what the EU stands for: When it’s a choice between profit and people, we choose people. That choice can’t wait any longer. Thankfully, with yesterday’s Affordable Housing Plan, the European Commission is starting to move on housing, taking steps that Spain has long advocated. Brussels now increasingly recognizes the scale of this emergency and acknowledges that specific market conditions may require differentiated national and local responses. This will help consolidate a shared policy understanding regarding housing-stressed areas and strengthen the case for targeted measures — which may include, among others, restrictions on short-term rentals. Crucially, the plan also stresses the need for EU financing to boost housing supply. The time for words is over. We need urgent action. A growing outcry over housing is resonating across Europe, and our citizens need concrete solutions. Any failure to act with ambition and urgency risks turning the housing crisis into a new driver of Euroskepticism. After World War II, Europe was built on two founding promises: securing peace and delivering well-being. Honoring that legacy today means taking decisive action by massively increasing flexible funding to match the scale of the housing crisis, and guaranteeing member countries can swiftly implement the legal tools needed to adopt bold regulatory measures on short-term rentals and address the impact of nonresident buyers on housing access. The true measure of our union isn’t just written in treaties. It must be demonstrated by ensuring every person can live with dignity and have a place to call home. Let us rise to that promise — boldly, together and without delay.

BRUSSELS ― For decades, the EU’s view on housing policy has been simple: It’s not our problem. Housing isn’t explicitly listed as an institutional competence in any of the EU’s treaties, and though Brussels has issued legislation tackling topics like the energy performance of buildings or the quality of construction materials, it has left regulating the housing market to national, regional and local authorities — until now. National leaders attending Thursday’s European Council summit are abandoning that position, acknowledging they must provide a united response to a housing crisis that has become impossible to ignore and that is fueling the far right. “For the very first time, the European Union’s leaders will debate this critical issue at the very highest level,” European Council President António Costa said at a press conference Wednesday. “It is crucial that we, as European leaders, come together to discuss how the European Union can complement these efforts.” The meeting signals the Council’s decision to join the European Commission and the European Parliament — which have both staked a claim on the issue this year — in affirming that the EU now intends to tackle the affordability of homes. But with national leaders split on how best to address the crisis, it appears housing will be the latest of many issues the Council is deadlocked on ― a status quo that may favor far-right populists, and could also prove an obstacle to the Commission in its bid to roll out ambitious regulation. INSTITUTIONAL SHIFT While housing prices have been rising across Europe for at least a decade, the EU’s institutions have limited their response to symbolic gestures like the 2017 European Pillar of Social Rights, which declares all Europeans have the right to decent housing, but which does nothing to guarantee access to shelter. The institutional shift began ahead of the 2024 European Parliament election, when center-left groups embraced the issue, and ultimately convinced Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to appoint Denmark’s Dan Jørgensen as the bloc’s first dedicated housing commissioner. Jørgensen intends to unveil the EU’s landmark Affordable Housing Plan in December and has announced plans to present an initiative on short-term rentals in 2026. Following the Commission’s lead, the Parliament launched a dedicated special committee to analyze the scale of the problem last January, and is due to present its measures in the coming months. Shortly after taking over the Council — which hadn’t organized a single meeting of the EU’s housing ministers from 2013 to 2022 — Costa included the issue on the EU Leaders Agenda for 2025. Thursday’s summit consolidates his aspiration to have national leaders work together on the crisis he believes poses a triple threat to the EU, as it “affects the fundamental rights of citizens, negatively impacts competitiveness, and is undermining trust in democratic institutions.” ALL TALK? The complexity of the crisis means reaching a consensus in the Council will be difficult. National leaders are likely to be divided on how — or whether — to reign in speculation or regulate short-term rentals, and not all may support prioritizing the flow of EU cash to cooperatives and other affordable public housing schemes. In this week’s draft conclusions, national leaders described the crisis as “pressing,” but only proposed that the Commission present its already-scheduled Affordable Housing Plan. Moreover, the latest version of the text, seen by POLITICO on Wednesday, stresses that Brussels’ response should have “due regard” for subsidiarity — the legal principle that holds the EU should only meddle in an area if it’s certain to achieve better results than actors at the national, regional or local level. Sorcha Edwards of Housing Europe — which represents public, cooperative and social housing providers — said the text suggests the Council is preemptively excusing itself from intervening, and potentially setting itself up for a clash with the Commission if it considers Jørgensen’s Affordable Housing Plan to be excessively interventionist. “I’m not very surprised because each country will be defensive about their own approach,” she said, adding “short-term rental platforms will welcome the news.” But Edwards said a dedication to subsidiarity could be a good thing if it means the EU focuses on taking serious action on debt rules and funneling Brussels cash to social and public housing projects, while giving local authorities more tools to address the problem. Thursday’s summit will be closely watched by local leaders, like Barcelona Mayor Jaume Collboni — one of 19 politicians from major EU cities who signed an open letter urging the EU to do more, if only to rein in the far right. “This week’s European Council summit is an extremely relevant milestone towards an ambitious EU response to the housing crisis — the main source of social inequality in Europe,” Collboni told POLITICO. “We, the cities, expect a clear mandate for the European Commission to put forward an Affordable Housing Plan, which includes three key elements for cities: agile funding, regulation tools and decision-making capacity.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced major housing-related initiatives while unveiling Brussels’ legislative agenda for 2026 on Tuesday, underscoring the EU’s ongoing bid to take on the bloc-wide cost of living crisis. “Affordability is a main subject of this Commission Work Program for 2026,” von der Leyen said in a speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, stressing the need to address the high price of housing in order to “protect our citizens and uphold our values.” “How can Europe be competitive if people working full time cannot make a living?” she asked. “If they cannot afford to live where the good jobs are, because they do not find housing?” Brussels’ agenda for the next year will include a landmark initiative on short-term rentals that is due in the spring. Tourist flats — furnished accommodation for brief stays — are a major factor in sky-high housing costs in the bloc’s major cities, and Housing Commissioner Dan Jørgensen has signaled a desire to regulate such properties. “We cannot allow that locals are pushed out of their neighbourhoods,” Jørgensen said Tuesday, adding that the Commission’s proposal “will strike the right balance with a firm but fair approach.” Toward the end of 2026 Brussels will publish its Construction Services Act, which aims to slash regulations related to the building sector and accelerate the construction of new homes. The new law will follow up on the Commission’s upcoming Affordable Housing Plan, which is due to be released in December and according to Jørgensen will “target the financialization of our housing stock” and help end “selfish speculation on a basic need like our homes.” The EU’s main institutions are scrambling to address the housing crisis, which is fueling the growth of far-right parties throughout the EU. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders and his far-right Party for Freedom won the 2023 national vote campaigning on a housing shortage he said was being exacerbated by migrants and asylum seekers. Likewise, Portugal’s Chega party surged to become the country’s leading opposition this year by railing against the failure of establishment parties to tackle soaring home prices.  Tourist flats are a major factor in sky-high housing costs in the bloc’s major cities, and Housing Commissioner Dan Jørgensen has signaled a desire to regulate such properties. | George Vitsaras/EPA Von der Leyen signaled her personal commitment to take on the issue ahead of her reelection as Commission president in 2024, and described the housing shortage as a social crisis in this year’s State of the European Union address. The European Parliament launched a special committee on the crisis at the beginning of this year, and national leaders are due to discuss the issue at this week’s European Council summit in Brussels. “Across all sectors, my point is the same,” von der Leyen told lawmakers on Tuesday. “Europe must deliver for all of its people.”

In a bid to force Lisbon Mayor Carlos Moedas to step down after last week’s deadly funicular disaster, Portuguese lawmakers are using the politician’s own words against him. Sixteen people died when the iconic Glória Funicular’s suspension cable snapped last Wednesday, causing one of its tram cars to plummet down a steep slope and smash into a building. Following the catastrophe, leading politicians are claiming the city failed to adequately maintain its 140-year old railway system, and are evoking Moedas’ past statements in an attempt to push for his resignation. In 2021, Moedas’ predecessor Fernando Medina came under fire when his administration admitted to giving Russian authorities the personal information of at least three Lisbon-based Russian dissidents. Moedas — at the time a former European commissioner running as the center-right candidate in the local elections — had slammed the incumbent mayor, saying he had to take responsibility for the scandal. “City hall put these people in mortal danger,” he told POLITICO. “There have to be political consequences: Medina has to resign.” Now, with less than a month before Lisbon’s local elections, Moedas’ political opponents are citing his words from four years ago and demanding he take responsibility for the funicular disaster. “What would the Moedas of 2021 say to the Moedas of 2025?” asked André Ventura, leader of the far-right Chega party. “Serious politicians do not hide in times of crisis and do not shirk their responsibility: They assume it.” On the opposite side of the political spectrum, Secretary-General of the Portuguese Communist Party Paulo Raimundo also said Moedas’ own standards mean he’s no longer qualified to lead the city. The Socialist Party’s parliamentary leader Eurico Brilhante Dias similarly called for the mayor to be “coherent.” In an interview with POLITICO, Moedas insisted the funicular disaster couldn’t be compared to the scandal that embroiled his predecessor. While Medina had “direct responsibility” over the municipal employees who shared dissidents’ personal information, he argued last week’s accident wasn’t “attributable to a decision made by the mayor.” ASSIGNING BLAME A preliminary report released by Portugal’s transit safety authority this weekend attributes the crash to mechanical failure and rejects the possibility that human error played a role in the tragedy. Moedas’ critics say the findings raise serious questions about the historic funicular’s upkeep. In the aftermath of the disaster, employees of Lisbon’s Carris public transit authority said they spent years raising concerns about the funicular’s maintenance, which is subcontracted to private companies. They argued experienced in-house municipal engineers are better equipped to deal with the city’s aged infrastructure. Moedas told POLITICO the companies overseeing the maintenance have to “meet very strict specifications” and are monitored by Carris technicians who “reviewed and adapted all maintenance plans in accordance with necessary developments and changing realities.” He also declined to take responsibility for the outsourcing, which was decided in 2006, and insisted his administration hadn’t cut Carris’ operating budget. Moedas’ assertions don’t appear to have swayed Chega’s mayoral candidate Bruno Mascarenhas though, who is set to present a censure motion against the mayor on Tuesday. “The maximum representative of Carris, [the mayor] has to take responsibility,” Mascarenhas declared. Carlos Moedas insisted the funicular disaster couldn’t be compared to the scandal that embroiled his predecessor. | Horacio Villabos/Getty Images The mayor dismissed the censure motion as grandstanding ahead of the local elections. “This case has brought out the worst in politics and political exploitation,” he said, noting that the proposed motion would be nonbinding. Wary of being seen as playing politics with the tragedy, Socialist candidate Alexandra Leitão — who is polling neck and neck with Moedas — has yet to call for her rival’s resignation, insisting that it’s “premature” to make a political assessment. But on Monday, she urged Moedas to be more transparent about what went wrong. “The preliminary report shows that the safety system was insufficient, and that the technical inspections failed to detect the problems that eventually occurred,” she told supporters. “Something needs to change.”

Over three-quarters of Europeans live in cities, but their quality of life varies wildly — especially when it comes to factors that have a big impact on health. A group of international researchers developed a new Healthy Urban Design Index (HUDI) to track and assess well-being in 917 European cities, using indicators ranging from access to sustainable public transport and green spaces to air pollution exposure and heat islands.  The tracking tool was developed by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health using data gathered for a study to be published in this month’s Lancet Planetary Health journal. According to its findings there is a clear continental divide in conditions that favor healthy urban living. Analyses reviewed by POLITICO’s Living Cities showed that municipalities in Western Europe — especially in the U.K., Spain and Sweden — received significantly higher scores than comparable cities in Eastern European countries like Romania, Bulgaria and Poland. Natalie Mueller, one of the study’s authors and a researcher at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health and Pompeu Fabra University, said access to public funds plays a major role in this divide. “If there are financial constraints in cities, investing in sustainable and health-promoting urban forms and infrastructures, and defining environmental policies may be probably less of a priority than tackling other more pressing social and economic issues,” she said. Mueller also noted lingering cultural differences in environmental consciousness and the link between urban design and health. “Eastern European cities still have a strong car culture, where cars are still status symbols,” she said, adding that in some areas, active mobility options like cycling are frowned upon. “They still strongly cater to car traffic with necessary infrastructure, which leads to poor environmental quality and worse health outcomes.” By comparison, lower levels of air pollution, greater access to green spaces, and the reduced presence of urban heat islands enabled Europe’s smaller cities, with 50,000 to 200,000 inhabitants, to earn the highest HUDI scores. Topping the list is Pamplona — a regional capital in Spain that lies in a lush valley at the foot of the Pyrenees and that has used the considerable revenues from its annual “Running of the Bulls” festival to invest in active mobility infrastructure.  MADRID MAKES GOOD Earning the highest score among Europe’s urban areas with more than 1.5 million inhabitants was Madrid, another Spanish city. Like other big cities it ranked well on sustainable transport and housing density. However, Madrid’s placement was remarkable given that the Spanish capital routinely violated the EU’s air quality rules until 2023. Urbanism Councilor Borja Carabante told POLITICO this was precisely why the city had adopted aggressive measures to improve its expansive public transport system. “We’re the first EU capital to have a completely clean urban bus system,” he said, highlighting the number of electric or zero-emissions mass transport vehicles in the network. “We also have Europe’s largest low-emissions zone.” Carabante explained that the public transport initiatives accompanied subsidies for residents seeking to replace their cars or boilers with more sustainable models, or wanting to install e-charging stations in their buildings. Madrid is also taking on major infrastructure projects while building on the success of the Madrid Río regeneration project, which buried a major swathe of the capital’s ring road to recover the Manzanares River. | Jesus Hellin/Europa Press via Getty Images Madrid is also taking on major infrastructure projects while building on the success of the Madrid Río regeneration project, which buried a major swathe of the capital’s ring road to recover the Manzanares River. Work is currently underway on a scheme to redirect a major highway underground and to reconnect five neighborhoods that have been divided since 1968. The redeveloped 3-kilometer area will be a green axis with trees, playgrounds and space for pedestrians and cyclists.  Carabante said the project is emblematic of the city’s commitment to becoming a more desirable — and healthier — place to live. “While cities like Berlin, Rome, Paris and London continue to surpass the nitrogen-dioxide levels considered safe for humans, Madrid has drastically reduced it, complying with European standards, and has become a healthier, more pleasant and more sustainable city than ever before.” Citing examples from the study, Mueller emphasized there are plenty of low-cost measures that local authorities can implement to improve well-being within their municipalities. “You can open up streets and blocks to give people space to walk and cycle, as they’ve done in Barcelona’s superblocks, in London’s low-traffic neighborhoods or Berlin’s Kiezblocks,” she said. The researcher also recommended replacing parking spots with trees and other greenery to protect locals from deadly heat, or to prioritize public transport investments to boost connectivity and slash fares. Using the example of Amsterdam — which went from being a car-choked, smoggy port city in the 1970s to a global model for urban well-being — Mueller stressed that consistent long-term action is the key to making Europe’s cities healthier. Of course, the kind of measures that improve well-being in urban landscapes can be a challenge for municipal leaders, who are up for reelection every four years and are under pressure to prefer projects with immediate results. But Mueller urged them to think big.  “Building healthier urban infrastructure needs long-term, sustained investments,” she said. “Sometimes over many decades.”

Europe’s mayors are keen to tackle the housing crisis but want more help from the EU to take on that challenge and overcome budget constraints, a new poll reveals. This year’s Eurocities Pulse: Mayors Survey — conducted in the spring and shared exclusively with POLITICO’s Living Cities — polled 86 municipal leaders from 26 European countries. According to the results, 63 percent of the bloc’s mayors say tackling climate change is the top priority for their administration — consistent with last year’s findings. But this time, the second-most pressing concern on the list is access to affordable housing. In 2023, housing had barely made the list of the top 10 priorities for mayors surveyed by the network. Its current status as one of the major concerns for the bloc’s local leaders underscores the impact of the home affordability crisis on cities across the continent today. In many of Europe’s urban centers, mayors are facing mass protests against rising rental and home prices. In response, they’ve tried measures like rent caps, banned tourist rentals or launched major building initiatives. But those participating in the survey said they desperately need EU guidance to come up with a coordinated response to the crisis. Even though housing is not, officially, an EU competence, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen vowed to tackle the issue last year, and created the role of the bloc’s first dedicated Housing Commissioner, who is tasked with presenting a plan to increase Europe’s affordable housing stock in 2026. For the first time ever, the European Parliament now also has a Housing Committee, which is analyzing how costs can be reduced across the bloc. The surveyed mayors have plenty of suggestions for how this could be done. More than half say more EU money should be allocated for home-building through programs like the signature Cohesion Policy, which was recently tweaked to allow member countries to use up to €15 billion in regional funds to address the crisis. Local leaders are also calling for a revision of competition and state aid rules, so that more public cash can be allocated to building social and affordable housing. And they’re asking for comprehensive EU regulations to rein in the short-term rentals they say are exacerbating the problem. TRUST ISSUES The mayors polled by Eurocities say budget constraints remain a major obstacle to delivering on their priorities. As high inflation and rising energy costs continue to place municipal governments under strain, many local leaders express frustration toward national administrations, which they believe make it more difficult for cities to access public funds. These frustrations may explain why less than half of the polled mayors say they trust national authorities. The local leaders appear to resent their perceived loss of municipal autonomy — a result of the increased centralization of many EU countries — and complain of national politicians imposing “top-down” decisions. However, while those surveyed appear to lack faith in the national governments they perceive to be out of touch with local concerns, they see EU officials in far-off Brussels as trusted partners. Unsurprisingly, confidence in the bloc’s institutions varies depending on the extent of municipal participation in their programs. But, overall, local leaders appreciate the EU’s efforts to engage with city leaders and provide public funding for local projects. According to the survey, nearly three-quarters of participating mayors say they are optimistic about the EU’s future. That sets them apart from their constituents: The latest Eurobarometer data indicates only 62 percent of EU citizens express similar confidence in the bloc’s positive evolution. The positive sentiment may be due mayors’ direct interaction with the bloc’s institutions, as well as their awareness of how much EU cash is used to fund municipal projects and infrastructure. It also underscore local leaders’ potential as advocates for the European project — and as major players in its future development.

CATARROJA, Spain — Lorena Silvent remembers exactly where she was on Oct. 29 last year when deadly floods struck the Valencia region, leaving 228 victims in their wake. The mayor of Catarroja was standing in her office when she received a call from the chief of police warning her that parts of the city, a suburb just south of Spain’s third-largest metropolis, were flooding. “When I looked out the window, I could already see a brown stream starting to flow down the main street that crosses the city center. Within minutes, it had become a rushing river that carried off everything in its path — first trash cans, then cars.” Some 200 people sought refuge in the upper floors of the city hall building that night. And when the waters receded the following morning, they discovered every building in the municipality had been damaged by the disaster. Six months after the flood, the mayor is now overseeing a reconstruction effort predicated on the expectation that her city will someday flood again. Silvent’s government is among the first in Valencia to formally recognize the role of newly formed citizens’ committees in the reconstruction effort. Together, elected officials, bureaucrats and local residents are pioneering a new form of participatory urbanism, empowering residents to reshape the devastated city. “The next time the waters rise, we want to be prepared to handle them. That requires us to completely revise our approach to urbanism and question many of the things we’ve accepted until now,” the mayor said. RESIDENTS HAVE THEIR SAY When the floods hit, Valencians had to rely on one another to survive, giving their neighbors shelter as the water level rose. Faced with an apocalyptic scene as the floodwaters receded, they helped clear each other’s streets and houses of waterlogged furniture and mountains of mud. Catarroja resident and social educator Raül Camacho Segarra feels the show of civic unity was transformative for his community and others, who all felt betrayed by regional authorities that failed to warn them and were slow to aid in the recovery. “This tragedy generated a social movement of volunteers willing to leap over police barriers to help one another in those crucial days,” he said. As reconstruction discussions began, locals reflected on the region’s urban development, which was largely driven by speculative schemes that didn’t take factors like existing floodplains into account. Expressing their frustration with past governments that greenlit such projects, they decided to prevent that kind of city-building from happening again. The result is the citizen-led reconstruction committees established in Catarroja and other flood-hit municipalities throughout Valencia. Composed of a diverse collective of citizens — some with formal knowledge of architecture, urbanism and public law — these apolitical groups have banded together to have an active say in the recovery process. “We decided to redirect our anger at the status quo, at the mismanagement of our land and of the floods in which 228 of our loved ones died, and to channel that energy into our constructive demand to play an active role in the reconstruction of our city,” Camacho said. Raül Camacho Segarra is a member of Catarroja’s citizen-led reconstruction committee. | Aitor Hernández-Morales/POLITICO Initially focusing on urgent matters, they presented city hall with a list of priority cases, and Catarroja’s authorities eagerly accepted the input. It was the start of a fruitful collaboration that led the local government to share its draft reconstruction plan with the group and send representatives to its meetings. Now, the reconstruction committee’s goal is to ensure that the €210 million in public funds allocated to rebuild Catarroja don’t go to waste, Camacho said, evoking the public cash and real estate corruption scandals that have rocked the region in the past. “We’re talking about a sum that’s five times this city’s annual budget. It’s imperative to have organized citizen oversight.” A COMMON PATH The scale of the Valencia region’s reconstruction challenge is formidable. According to Mayor Silvent, some infrastructure — like Catarroja’s indoor pool and police station — is set to be rebuilt on higher ground, while buildings like the auditorium will be cleared of waterlogged elements and remodeled to ensure anyone trapped inside can quickly move to safety. “We’ve also got to figure out how to move the machinery that powers city hall out of the basement and sort out the underground archive,” she said. “It’s a miracle water didn’t seep into it this time. If it had, we would have lost priceless documents, our history.” Silvent noted the reconstruction process would require accepting that some buildings won’t be restored. “There was a time when every city in this region demanded to have its own theater, sports center, pool,” she said. “Now we’re thinking maybe we’re okay with commuting to the installations in the neighboring town, and having their residents use ours.” The biggest challenge, however, will be private property in the city’s most vulnerable areas. So far, Silvent’s government has moved to cancel all unapproved construction permits for the riskiest sites, and is in the process of developing regulations to ensure new buildings are designed to handle floods. It’s also trying to reclaim land from the Horta Sud, a vast area of farmland that has historically helped soak up water in extreme weather events. “This is land people have lately been buying up not because they wanted to cultivate food but because they wanted to engage in real estate speculation. We want it back because reactivating it will give us access to local, healthy food, and because we know irrigation canals can help us evacuate water in future crises,” she explained. Silvent said she’s confident citizens can help the city make these major changes more effectively. Earlier this month, her municipal government was among the first in the region to grant its local reconstruction committee official recognition, and to incorporate its representatives into administrative sessions, including one overseeing the distribution of public funds to local businesses. Valencian architect and social worker Júlia Gomar believes the partnership forged here, and between other reconstruction committees and local administrations, is a sign that something good is coming out of the tragedy. “The flood here was a bit like Covid, in that it exposed how vulnerable we are as individuals, and how much we need those neighbors we often hardly know,” she said. Mayor Lorena Silvent said the reconstruction process obliges the city to revise its entire approach to urbanism. | Aitor Hernández-Morales/POLITICO “One’s doorstep became the border separating the public spaces where authorities could help, and the private domains where you had to rely on common citizens,” she said, noting that the military units deployed weren’t authorized to clean out homes. “It helped generate a new sense of community that’s now going beyond the initial common feelings of anger and betrayal, and instead becoming an agent for empowerment and change.” Silvent said that although it can be difficult to “involve the public in public administration,” it’s worth the effort right now. “We’ve lived through an extreme crisis and people have lost a lot of faith in government. I think we can help repair that relationship by bringing people in and letting them be a part of this process.”

WHY TRUMP IS EUROPE’S ACCIDENTAL CITY-BUILDER Europe’s émigrés built America’s skylines, suburbs and strip malls. Will the U.S. brain drain do the same for the EU? By AITOR HERNÁNDEZ-MORALES in Brussels, Belgium Illustration by Tomato Košir for POLITICO At the height of World War II, Adolf Hitler dreamed of developing rockets that could destroy American cities. It’s an irony of history that he not only failed to achieve this, but inadvertently helped shape the modern-day U.S. metropolis. Like countless political leaders before him, Hitler considered the built environment a canvas for the projection of power. He recruited architects and urbanists who could reflect the Third Reich’s values, and punished innovators whose “degenerate” structures weren’t aligned with the regime. Many of those persecuted visionaries eventually sought refuge in the U.S. There, they were instrumental in redefining the American city, creating the urban landscapes we know today. Nearly a century later, President Donald Trump is poised to provoke a new exodus — this time, in reverse. URBANISM IN TRUMP’S HEADLIGHTS The U.S. administration’s recent moves to cancel environmentally sensitive urban development projects, impose an official style for federal buildings and target free speech on college campuses are setting the stage for America’s best and brightest city-builders to seek their fortunes across the Atlantic. Cruz García — founder of the WAI Architecture Think Tank and an associate professor at Columbia University — told POLITICO of the instability facing those working on publicly funded projects, and highlighted the administration’s decision to review 400 initiatives funded by the Environmental Protection Agency. Concerned that environmental resilience projects serving historically marginalized communities may be delayed, significantly altered or canceled, he noted that many people who had received grants for projects had already received termination notices. Federal cut-backs “definitely could, or would, potentially lead scholars to seek to continue their work abroad,” he said. According to Billy Fleming, an associate professor at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and Architecture,  the “focus on kidnapping and deporting” foreign students like Georgetown University fellow Badar Khan Suri or Tufts University researcher Rümeysa Öztürk — who were both detained for attending pro-Palestinian campus protests — is also likely to undermine the U.S. as a destination for promising architects. “American schools of architecture have long relied on international students,” he said. “Attacks on student visa holders could upend their financial models and force the closure of smaller programs or departments. In those with smaller endowments […] it could lead to the closure of entire schools of architecture.” But the impact of Trump’s measures extends beyond academia. Billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has ordered mass layoffs and budget cuts at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. It also terminated a $1 billion program to repair and climate-proof aging or damaged affordable homes, while jeopardizing a plan to build housing for thousands of low-income families. Harvard’s Graduate School of Design recruited Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius. | Wikipedia The Department of Transportation has similarly ordered a review of projects that “improve the condition for environmental justice communities or actively reduce greenhouse gas emissions” and is considering canceling federal funding for cycle lanes. Julie Deutschmann, spokesperson for the Architects’ Council of Europe — which represents the interests of over 500,000 architects from 36 countries — believes all this may “lead some architecture and urbanism professionals to relocate in search of environments where innovation, sustainability and academic openness are better supported.” “Political decisions can significantly influence the global flow of talent,” she said. “Europe’s foundation in these areas positions it well to attract talent.” TARGETED BY TOTALITARIANISM Historian Barbara Steiner, director of Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, which preserves the legacy of the revolutionary German art school, sees a clear parallel between the 1930s and the present “upheaval and uncertainty.” “We are on the way to a system of totalitarian coordination over all aspects of society from economy to the media, culture and education, of appearances, spaces and thinking in order to gain control over heterogeneous societies and critical discourse,” she said. The U.S. architectural community has been particularly jarred by Trump’s move to impose an official style on federal buildings, with an executive order requiring they “respect regional, traditional, and classical architectural heritage.” A revival of a widely condemned order he issued in 2020, it has reminded many of mandates imposed by authoritarian leaders of the past. Immediately after taking power, Hitler had targeted architects whose aesthetics weren’t aligned with his totalitarian regime. His particular bête noire was the Bauhaus school due to its promotion of minimalist and functional design. And though the Third Reich was yet to developed its signature style — the heavy, stripped classicism that survives in Berlin’s Olympiastadion or Nuremberg’s rally grounds — Bauhaus represented the distinctly internationalist outlook it detested. Steiner said Nazi leaders attacked Bauhaus buildings for their rejection of “regional traditions,” for being “architectural sins that were cold, repellent and unattractive.” The school’s embrace of Jewish, foreign and progressive students and faculty also led them to denounce it as a hotbed for communists. And when the “degenerate” institution was ultimately closed, with many of its members obliged to flee, America was waiting to receive them. THE EXILES THAT BUILT AMERICA U.S. universities tripped over themselves to take in Europe’s displaced visionaries. Harvard’s Graduate School of Design recruited Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius, who served as a “hub between displaced European modernists and American architects” and taught several generations of students to embed “the usefulness of sociology” into their designs, Steiner said. The sleek, modern “International Style” he promoted would come to define the aesthetics and layout of U.S. cities for decades to come. Many of that movement’s most iconic U.S. buildings would eventually be designed by the last Bauhaus director, Mies van der Rohe, who joined the Illinois Institute of Technology after leaving Germany. His steel-and-glass residential towers on Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive became an instant reference point for high-rise housing, while his Seagram Building in New York inspired countless knockoffs in business districts. “Mies reimagined downtowns,” said Timothy Welch, director of the University of Auckland’s Urban Planning Program. “His tower-in-a-park model created a new urban typology — open plazas surrounding minimalist skyscrapers.” But the impact wasn’t just on urban areas, it also seeped into America’s sprawl, cementing the aesthetic of the standardized suburban single-family home. Hitler’s particular bête noire was the Bauhaus school due to its promotion of minimalist and functional design. | Alexander Savin via Wikipedia Many who made their way to the U.S. had been involved in the progressive city-building projects of 1920’s “Red Vienna,” and their socially minded outlook helped shape California’s postwar suburbs, explained architectural historian Volker M. Welter. Leopold Fischer’s well-known Los Angeles neighborhood of detached houses, for example, were a “translation” of the social housing estates he built with Gropius in 1920’s Dessau — a reflection of the European vision of “architectural modernism as a social commitment.” But the exiled European architect who perhaps had the most profound impact on U.S. cities was Austria’s relatively unknown Victor Gruen. Both Jewish and a committed socialist, he was forced to flee after the Anschluss and eventually settled in California, where he was repulsed by the period’s car-centric culture. “Gruen internalized a vision of urbanism centered on human-scaled, socially integrated spaces,” Welch said. And in a bid to recreate “Vienna’s café culture and walkable streets,” he invented the shopping mall — a space meant to shield consumers from traffic by combining housing, civic facilities, public amenities and shops. “The irony, of course, is that his solutions were ultimately coopted by the very forces of commercialization and automobility he fought against,” Welch commented. But while most malls became, in Gruen’s own words, “avenues of horror,” the faithful adaptation of his concept in Kalamazoo inspired the creation of pedestrian zones in dozens of cities. Gruen introduced “ideas about pedestrian priority, mixed-use development and public space that would later become central to […] contemporary urban design.” AMERICA’S BRAIN DRAIN While the full impact of Trump’s ongoing MAGA measures remains to be seen, Europe already stands out as a potential haven for U.S. architects and urbanists. Tania Gutiérrez-Monroy, an architectural historian and assistant professor at the University of British Columbia, said the administration’s budget cuts meant it is no longer “far-fetched” to imagine researchers working on urban climate resilience or equity projects leaving the country. “At what point does continuing this work abroad become the more viable — or ethical — choice?,” asked architect Cruz García. The EU’s universities and governments are keen to welcome modern-day intellectual émigrés and have set up recruitment drives to compliment existing research schemes like Erasmus+, Horizon Europe and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions. Deutschmann emphasized that Europe offers forward-thinking émigré architects plenty of professional opportunities too. The EU’s “robust investment in urban resilience, sustainable mobility, green infrastructure and affordable housing,” with legislative packages like the Green Deal and programs like the New European Bauhaus, means there’s a strong “demand for innovative, socially engaged, and environmentally conscious design,” she said. “Europe’s commitment to these goals [show] that architecture and urban planning are not just technical challenges — they are acts of leadership,” Deutschmann added. “They are about building the future we believe in — one that reflects European values and aspirations.”

This article is part of POLITICO’s Global Policy Lab: Living Cities, a collaborative journalism project exploring the future of cities. Sign up here. EU countries will be able to use up to €15 billion of the bloc’s regional development funds to tackle the housing crisis, the European Commission announced on Tuesday. The move effectively doubles the amount of cash available for affordable housing investments within EU’s signature cohesion policy through 2027. The announcement came during the mid-term review of the nearly €400 billion scheme, which the Commission created to reduce disparities between the bloc’s regions but now wants to use for priority issues like defense spending, competitiveness and housing. Southern EU members like Italy and Spain, which have reacted coolly to repurposing cohesion funds for defense, are likely to be placated by the increased allocation for home-building. Soaring housing and rent prices have resulted in mass demonstrations in both countries and put politicians under pressure to expand affordable housing stock. Energy and Housing Commissioner Dan Jørgensen told POLITICO that doubling the cohesion funds available for homes underscores Brussels’ commitment to taking on housing affordability. “The housing crisis in Europe is one of the most pressing issues where our citizens expect fast action,” he said. “It’s an imperative for social cohesion and economic prosperity.” Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has made the crisis, which is fueling support for far-right parties across the bloc, a priority issue for her second term. She first mentioned the possibility of increasing the cohesion funds earmarked for housing during her address to the European Parliament ahead of her reelection last summer. The Commission is expected to unveil a plan to boost public and private investments in home-building later this year. Gregorio Sorgi contributed reporting.

In the early morning hours of March 8, 2020, the lives of Milan’s more than 1 million residents were radically upended. Just three weeks earlier, a 38-year-old man had become the first resident of Italy’s northern Lombardy region to test positive for Covid-19. And after more locals developed symptoms, authorities placed a handful of towns under quarantine, with red zones declared to keep residents from spreading the mysterious new respiratory virus. During those first days of the crisis, few thought that Milan, the country’s economic powerhouse, would ever face similar restrictions. But the unthinkable became inevitable as the number of confirmed cases spiked, and on that Sunday in March, then-Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte held an emergency press conference to announce that Italy’s second-largest city was locked down. It was the beginning of an extraordinary period that would see Milan be transformed by measures that would ultimately endure far beyond the crisis. Pierfrancesco Maran — at the time a municipal councilor in charge of the city’s powerful urbanism portfolio — recalls feeling shocked when he heard the decision. “It all seemed incredible,” Maran, now a lawmaker in the European Parliament, told Living Cities in an interview. “We couldn’t believe that such dramatic measures were being adopted.” Leading up to lockdown, Milan was experiencing a “fantastic moment” in its history, Maran explained, with the city’s fortunes trending up since hosting the 2015 World Expo. Its shift from industrial capital to a global hub of innovation, tourism and prosperity was finally being consolidated. “As a city councilor, it was difficult for me to accept the that the lockdown was the only way forward,” he said. “But it was also clear that all other attempts to contain the pandemic weren’t working.” LA NUOVA NORMALITÀ Milan’s lockdown was the first to affect a major European city. But within days, the rest of the continent’s metropolitan regions would find themselves under similar conditions. The entirety of Italy was declared a red zone just 48 hours after the harsh restrictions were imposed on the capital of Lombardy. Countries like Spain, Belgium and France would follow suit just days later, and by the end of the month, every European country — and, indeed, much of the world — had quarantine rules in place. Maran said that by virtue of being one of the first cities to be subject to a lockdown, Milan was among the first to start working on “a gradual, post-pandemic reopening” — an ambitious plan that reimagined the urban landscape to prioritize access to public spaces. “Our strategy had the reconquest of public space at its core,” he explained, emphasizing that the outdoors was “the safest space from the point of view of contagion.” But, he added, the city’s approach aimed to make the most of the “extraordinary opportunity” provided by a lockdown that was, at the time, keeping everyone at home. “That made it possible to do things that would have otherwise been very difficult, if not impossible,” he said. “We created cycle paths on the main city arteries to manage the reduced capacity of public transport, promoted smart working, and substantially liberalized the possibility for bars and restaurants to place tables outside.” The city’s tactical Strade Aperte urbanism plan capped speed limits on roads at 30 kilometers per hour, widened sidewalks, and saw the installation of low-cost temporary cycle lanes throughout the city. And Milan’s approach to la nuova normalità — “the new normal” — quickly became an example for other cities across Europe. In Brussels, authorities similarly rolled out temporary cycling infrastructure and set 20 kilometer per hour speed limits within the Pentagon zone — the area encircled by the city’s inner ring road — where pedestrians and bikers were given priority. Meanwhile, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo moved to make pandemic terraces permanent and put French-Colombian academic Carlos Moreno’s 15-minute city model at the heart of her successful reelection campaign. The impact of these Milan-inspired measures were far-reaching, with air quality improving in urban areas throughout Europe. They were also enthusiastically embraced by city dwellers, who overwhelmingly supported making many of the temporary changes permanent. LASTING IMPACT Today, five years after the crisis began, Maran said he’s proud to see so many of “the most drastic changes adopted during the pandemic now consolidated as integral elements” in cities that are no longer threatened by Covid-19. The temporary cycle paths installed during Milan’s lockdown have blossomed into over 100 kilometers of new bike lanes, and smart working schemes have become standard in the countless businesses based in the capital of Lombardy. But Maran also noted that some of the other omnipresent lockdown practices — like public hand sanitizer dispensers or the use of face masks — were shunted as soon as the pandemic was brought under control with the roll-out of the Covid-19 vaccine. “I don’t think we’ve left these things behind for economic reasons or anything like that, but rather because they remind us too much of that period,” he said. This modern desire to forget the pandemic isn’t unusual — our ancestors had the same reaction to the similarly devastating Spanish Flu pandemic of 1919. Once its impact subsided, the world rushed to move on, and just five years after the disease claimed between 50 million and 100 million lives, the 1924 Encyclopedia Britannica failed to even mention it in its review of the 20th century’s most significant events. “I think most people want to erase anything that makes them think about it explicitly,” Maran observed. “It’s only been five years since it happened, but nobody wants to talk about it.” But while the general public can try to forget the trauma, local authorities don’t have that luxury, Maran said. And in its aftermath, municipal governments now have specific plans to put into action for the future pandemics experts say our cities will inevitably face. “We now all have pandemic management plans that are regularly updated, and our administrations have developed structures that allow us to work in even the most daunting emergency situations,” he said. “This experience has left us prepared to face a similar emergency, whenever it might arise.”