SGWSG Presentation

Preparing a presentation for the annual conference of the Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte in Bern next Saturday. My presentation will compare citizens’ initiatives strategies to provide low-income housing in the US and in West-Germany. Even though the problem was very similar on both sides of the Atlantic the citizens’ groups self-conception and their strategies were very different. The comparison also reveals quite a bit about local civil society and politics in both countries - in sum: in the US market mechanisms are much more respected and actually used while in German cities the parliamentary and administrative system is the focal point. I hope this paper will make it into a publication.