Sustainable housing development: decoupling or degrowth? A comparative study of Copenhagen and Hangzhou

Jin Xue

Environment and Planning C, 2015, vol. 33, issue 3, 620-639

Abstract: In this paper I examine the extent to which economic growth and housing stock growth have been decoupled from negative environmental impacts over the latest two decades in the metropolitan areas of Hangzhou (China) and Copenhagen (Denmark). Research results show that housing stock growth and economic growth have been, at best, weakly decoupled from environment impacts, implying that the goal of sustainable housing development has not been fulfilled by the decoupling strategies. On the basis of this, constraints to decoupling strategies for housing sustainable development are discussed, which indicates a long-term incompatibility between housing stock growth and environmental sustainability. Arguably, sustainable housing development should be pursued by nongrowth in the housing stock in affluent countries in order to reduce the environmental impacts from housing consumption to a sustainable level. The visions for a nongrowth housing stock in both city regions are imagined in terms of potential risks and countermeasures.

Keywords: decoupling strategies; sustainable housing development; urban development; nongrowth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envirc:v:33:y:2015:i:3:p:620-639

DOI: 10.1068/c12305

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