Housing challenges for Circular Cities: (2) Socioeconomic challenges to make smart cities more sustainable.

This event discusses the challenges the cities are facing related to their housing market, the implications that technical and economic issues would have on the wellbeing of the citizens, and how they meet the requirements of modern (circular) Cities. Experts from the Real Estate Advisory Group of UNECE (REM) will present different cases and studies they are involved in, debating those challenges and defining future lines of potential policies for more sustainable life in cities and potential ideas to promote circularity in cities associated with the issues covered.

Review and debate about the causes and consequences of the nowaday main economic troubles in cities, like lack of affordability, lack of finance, new trends of housing demand, and mobility, among others, help design measures which could improve the housing consumption experience in cities and allow households to meet the conditions of the housing market sustainably.

Lack of housing affordability is an increasing problem in most cities. Investigating the reasons and monitoring the policies that cities apply to alleviate their strong effects is an excellent way to learn how to deal with and disseminate experiences. Energy poverty is a collateral effect of the ongoing energy crisis that affects an increasing number of households. So far, most attention has been focused on methods to upgrade and finance the buildings' energy efficiency. It is required to explore energy policies integrated into urban policies in order to maximise the cost/efficiency of the invested capital.

The panel addresses the socioeconomic challenges for a sustainable city including affordability, energy poverty, neighbourhood resiliency, economic impacts, and finance. 

The panel topics are: 

- People's behaviour vs regional policies + Social areas, 

- The lack of housing affordability and its consequences. 

- Energy efficiency and welfare: avoiding energy poverty. 

- The short-term rental market and its economic impacts. 

- Sustainable finance.