Care at the centre: Conceptualising the care and housing crises from an urban perspective

Abstract Care and housing are interrelated in daily practice, and profound crises have been observed in both areas. While policymakers and civil society pay significant attention to the housing crisis as a societal problem that must be collectively mitigated through diverse political measures, the care crisis still largely falls on households, families and institutions. To address the connections between these fields, this paper provides a theoretical framework for understanding the nexus between care and housing, as well as for determining whether cities develop in a caring or uncaring way. The proposed framework is twofold. First, the article theorises the care and housing crisis across five core dimensions: availability, affordability, compatibility, quality and social mixing. For each dimension, the key issues in both care and housing are highlighted to provide an analytical grid for studying uncaring or caring cities. Second, the article adopts a Lefebvrian urban perspective on these core dimensions in order to operationalise potential transformations towards a caring city. The main argument is that an urban theory that systematically focuses on the care–housing nexus helps to grasp the interrelated nature of the crises in each of the two areas and to contribute to its partial mitigation. This is because the approach seeks out chances for de-individualisation and de-gendering, thereby highlighting an intertwined societal and collective responsibility.