Economic degrowth Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Economic degrowth - Essay Example This is a good sign of economic degrowth. In terms of enhancing consumers’ health, the working condition of the workers, and preserving the available economic and natural resources for future generations, the transition stage from economic growth to degrowth is one of the most unique political breakthrough that took place in the United States (Latouche, 2007). In line with this, Kennedy (2010) explained that cities that is undergoing degrowth process is characterized by a limited population density and self-sufficient even though there was a shift from urbanization to rural way of living. In general, the population of cities that is undergoing degrowth process is usually below 10,000 residents per city (Bliss, 2011; Reinhardt, 2011). Depending on the size of geographic area, population size of degrowth cities can be less than 50,000 (Mathivet, 2009). Because of the limited production and consumption of goods, cities that are focused on degrowth are the ones that could preserve their existing natural resources and energy resources without sacrificing the standards of living of people living in these cities. Q.2 How may this area be influenced by degrowth? At the end of the document you will see a table with your name appearing alongside a particular theme (transport, housing, multifunctional urbanism, decision making processes, use of environmental technologies.) What area have you been invited to focus on: Housing Inflation rate in the United Kingdom has significantly increased from 3.0 up to 5.0 between January 2009 up to January 2011 respectively (National Statistics, 2011). Because of the increasing trend in the annual CPI inflation rate and interest rates in the US and UK market, the selling price of single detach houses has been significantly increasing over the past few years (Nordvik and Gulbrandsen, 2009). In 2001, there were as much as 215,000 companies building roughly 146,000 single-detached houses (Glaeser, 2004). As a consequence in the high market prices of single detached houses, there is a shift from the demand for expensive single detached houses to low-cost and more affordable multi-unit housing projects such as townhouses, apartment buildings, dormitories, or condominium units (Murray, 2011; Reference for Business, 2011; Johanisova, Crabtree, and Frankova, 2010; Glaeser, 2004). In line with this, there are some constructors who are already designing multi-unit housing projects using low-cost pre-fabricated housing materials (Reference for Business, 2011). There are socio-economic advantages associated with the shift from single-detached houses to multi-unit houses. First, it is possible to increase the supply of affordable housing units to meet the increasing population in US and UK (Glaeser, 2004). Aside from effectively protecting the environment from the adverse consequences of consuming too much electricity, degrowth in the housing industry is also more economical on the part of the consumers in terms of decr easing the cost of maintaining the quality of small-unit houses (Crawford and Heller, 2010; Register, 2010). Q.3 What has already been envisaged or put in practice that would be welcomed by a de-growth society? Give some examples and indicate the impact/ results of these 'alternatives' (e.g. from slow-cities to the setting up of autonomous communities and the recuperation of community; from