A moral right to urban living? Social-ethical analyses

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The research project tackles the threefold question wether a moral right to urban living may be defended, what such a right might imply and in which way it could be implemented politically. Set against the backdrop of an evident shortage in affordable urban housing, a controversial debate on political solutions is raging. Main issue is the role and degree of state intervention. The controversy is not only rooted in different perceptions of the economy, but also in diverging normative ideas concerning urban housing, which are, however, seldom made explicit. If the question of urban housing is considered an issue of individual preference only, then state intervention into the markets carries little conviction. If, however, urban living is seen as a question of justice for reasons of job opportunities or environmental concern, then things might be different. The project applies an interdisciplinary approach. For the consideration of the ethical issues in question it follows a coherentistic methodology and relies on the economical and sociological analysis of empirical data. The global aim - what would a moral right to urban living imply, can it be defended, in which was could it be implemented - is pursued in several steps. First of all, housing conditions and their parameters - the question of equality of living conditions in urban and rural areas, the situation on the housing market, the social status of those concerned or the legal situation - need to be considered. In a second step the normative reasoning that has been developed in significant social-ethical debates of the recent past needs to be scrutinized. Departing from those argumentations and the relevant debates on zoning, regional planning and housing, the normative implications of contemporary political debates may be identified. On the basis of this type of interdisciplinarily acquired information, the descriptive meaning and prescriptive dimensions of a moral right to urban living can be spelled out which is a prerequisitel to analyze wether such a moral right can be defended or must be challenged. To enable impact assessment, a last research round inviting external expertise is then applied to enable reflections on how to shape the economic realization of such a moral right and how to deal with possible undesired side-effects.