Urban land ownership and the housing question in Germany: Insights from Catholic social ethics

Abstract

As one measure to combat the housing affordability crisis, land policy is once again receiving more attention. However, it is little known that Catholic social ethicists in Germany were also heavily involved in urban land policy debates between 1950 and 1980. Along the lines of Catholic property ethics, they criticised that land law at the time was too strongly geared towards the interests of private owners and too little towards the common good. They considered this to be particularly problematic as they ascribed a strong social character to land ownership, which was hardly taken into account by land law and therefore led to unjustified privileges for landowners. In order to create a balance between the individual character and the social character of land ownership, they suggested, among other things, to tax land more heavily, to strengthen the public sector as a property owner and to improve spatial planning measures. The renaissance of land policy and the example of the city of Ulm, which successfully pursues an active land policy, testify to the topicality of the Catholic social ethicists’ position on urban land policy. However, a crucial deficit of this position is that it does not take into account ecological requirements of land use.

Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article combines insights from economics and Catholic social ethics. It is aimed at academics from economics, theology or housing studies as well as anyone from politics and civil society who is concerned with the ‘housing question’.