Cody Hochstenbach

Wanna see a crazy chart? Of course you do.

Spending on constructing datacenters and manufacturing facilities for computers & electronic products in the US now exceeds the entire retail and wholesale industry and almost as much as the rest of the office and manufacturing sectors combined.

Plastics 'crisis' is costing $1.5tn in global deaths and injuries, report says Plastic production is set to triple by 2060, fueled by petrochemical-producing countries pivoting away from declining fossil fuel use — and toward plastic.

"Plastic production is on course to triple by 2060, less than 10% of it is recycled, and around 8,000 megatons now pollute the planet" - report from The Lancet just before the next UN plastics treaty talks begin in Geneva www.nbcnews.com/science/scie...

From above everything looks grey or black. Smoke is seen rising from building ga at the top of the photo. In the foreground many buildings have collapsed entirely. Photo credit to Heidi Levine taken for the Washington Post.

Photo of the Day.

Israel threatened reprisals if the press filmed Gaza from above during airdrops.

This is why. A scene of destroyed & burnt out buildings in what is left of Gaza City, the pre-war home to 800,000 people.

Credit to Post photographer Heidi Levine who defied the ban & took this.

Bending the knee one after the next

*aangenomen amendement

VNG wijzigt standpunt Wet versterking regie volkshuisvesting De VNG heeft haar positieve advies over de Wet regie versterking Volkshuisvesting ingetrokken. Aanleiding hiervoor zijn verschillende amendementen die de Tweede Kamer heeft aangenomen.

De VNG trekt haar steun in voor de Wet versterking regie volkshuisvesting, en adviseert Eerste Kamer tegen te stemmen. Belangrijkste reden is het aangenomen om statushouders /mensen met verblijfsvergunning uit te sluiten van iedere mogelijkheid tot voorrang voor sociale huur

vng.nl/nieuws/vng-w...

PROPOSED RESCISSION OF BUDGET AUTHORITY Report Pursuant to Section 1012 ofthe Congressional Budget andlmpoundment Control Act of 1974 (2 U.S.C. 683) Agency: INTERNATIONAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS Bureau: Multilateral Assistance Account: International Organizations and Programs (019-1005 2025/2025) Amount proposed for rescission: $436,920,000 Justification: This proposal would rescind $437 million, the entire amount appropriated in FY 2025 for International Organizations and Programs (IOP). The IOP account funds voluntary contributions to international organizations and programs, largely to the United Nations (UN). This rescission would eliminate funding for the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), UN Development Program (UNDP), the Montreal Protocol, the UN Population Fund (UNFP A), among various other organizations. In the past these voluntary contributions have compounded the excessive burden ofAmerica's disproportionately high contributions. Enacting this rescission would encourage international organizations to be more efficient, down-scope their sprawling missions, and seek contributions from other member nations and donors, putting American taxpayers first.

MAKE THE OZONE HOLE GREAT AGAIN

HR 4 kills US funding of the Montreal Protocol

5calls.org/issue/hr4-re...

De kostbare vrijheid van architect Herman Hertzberger (93): ‘Ik heb mijn hele leven ervoor gevochten om onbestemde ruimte te maken’ Herman Hertzberger, architect: Herman Hertzberger is een van de invloedrijkste architecten van Nederland. In zijn nieuwe boek ‘Shaping Freedom’ beschrijft hij de kern van zijn gedachtegoed: „Een huis ...

Hertzberger over bouwen bouwen bouwen:

"Ik ben er zo bang voor dat, omdat er dus die woningnood is, dat ze denken: we gaan gewoon maar bouwen, bouwen zonder ideeën. Als ik zie wat voor woningen er gemaakt worden, dat is zo treurig."

www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/...

Moreno woonde in een ongebruikte kamer van het hotel waar hij werkte. ‘Uit schaamte vertelde ik het niemand’ Dakloosheid: Steeds meer mensen hebben een baan, een sociaal netwerk, maar géén huis. Noodgedwongen slapen ze bij vrienden, in auto’s of vakantieparken. Een wet die deze woensdag in de Kamer wordt bes...

De podcast is naar aanleiding van dit artikel dat eerder verscheen in NRC:
www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/...

Wel werk, tóch dakloos: de verborgen slachtoffers van de wooncrisis Op de bank bij een vriend slapen, op zolder bij familie of in een vakantiepark: door de oververhitte woningmarkt raken steeds meer mensen dakloos. De stress en schaamte die daarbij komen kijken, blijv...

Vandaag ben ik te gast in de NRC Vandaag podcast, om het te hebben over de verborgen slachtoffers van de wooncrisis. Veel vormen van dakloosheid blijven namelijk onzichtbaar en worden niet als zodanig erkend, terwijl de gevolgen ontwrichtend zijn.

Luister hier:
www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/...

Zag gisteren een fragment van een American Football coach, huilend in beeld nadat er kinderen uit het team zo maar op klaarlichte dag waren opgepakt door ICE. De presentatrice vroeg hem wat hem het meest raakte. En hij zei; ‘the cowards. Our constitution is under attack and i see too many cowards.’

So far it's been very rewarding to combine social science perspectives with industrial ecology methods. I've already learned a lot from this interdisciplinary exchange, and look forward continuing to do so.

This grant allows me to further develop an incipient collaboration with inspiring colleagues in urban planning (Federico Savini) & industrial ecology at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (Mira Kopp) and in Leiden (Stefano Merciai, Peter Berrill, Leshem Cohen).

The first step is to chart tensions and complementarities between social and environmental inequalities in housing. The second step is to develop (ideal typical) scenarios where social and environmental inequalities may be mitigated.

I am happy to share that I have received an NWO XS-grant (50,000 euros) to work on a project on socio-environmental inequalities in housing! See the short description below.

www.nwo.nl/en/news/from...

Ik ben niet de oud-staatssecretaris maar ik kom ook aan bod in de aflevering:
youtu.be/vAaDL-Glub4?...

Climate fatalism is just as wrong as climate denial — it's never 'too late' for change Veteran environmentalist David Suzuki believes the time has passed us to stop climate change. He's wrong.

“Declaring climate mitigation a dead end does nothing but help those working to make that false statement true… We know that the fossil fuel economy bleeds, and it can only survive if we collectively succumb to its constantly repeated message of inevitability.” Writes @ketanjoshi.co

Congrats! Sounds very interesting, I look forward reading it

SCORING HIGH, PAYING UP, GATING IN: Middle‐class Formation and Asset Inequalities under Digital Capitalism in South Africa This article examines how modern class dynamics become intertwined with automated classifications and data-driven regimes of value creation under digital capitalism by demonstrating how housing marke....

How does digital capitalism affect wealth inequalities and class formation? This is a question I answer in this new paper, focusing on South Africa.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

In welke wereld leef je als je denkt dat de VVD van Yesilgöz een middenpartij is

Sixteen Gazans, Including 10 Children, Killed by IDF While Waiting for Aid, Medics Say

It should be intolerable that this is a daily occurrence.

www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

The German government wants to cut taxes on air travel, but who would benefit from it?

32% of Germans "never" fly, 38.5% do so less than once a year

Meanwhile a small group of "frequent flyers" (7.5% who fly at least every 6 months) is responsible for 43%-49% of flights

Edwin Buitelaar (UU) over de ambitie 100.000 woningen per jaar te bouwen:
"Vooralsnog halen we het niet, en het is maar de vraag of dat ooit lukt. Wat me stoort is dat zulke doelen vaak worden gesteld door mensen die niet zelf verantwoordelijk zijn voor de realisatie."
vgvisie.nl/2025/06/16/v...

At the same time, Kadi does not reduce Vienna to a perfect example (as is regularly the case), but also points out various challenges the city faces (such as inaccessibility of the social-rental sector, and private-rental unaffordability)

Vienna has been declared a renters’ utopia – and it’s easy to see why | Justin Kadi Social housing makes up almost half of the city’s 1m homes. The system isn’t perfect, but it gets a lot of things right, says housing expert Justin Kadi

Vienna is regularly cited as the best example of how to do affordable housing, and @justinkadi.bsky.social is *the* Vienna housing expert.

He explains the city's social-rental stock results from structural political commitment + investment (1% levy on salaries)

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

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🏠 New paper published in Progress in Human Geography 🏠

'For a political economy of housing and health' by Cody Hochstenbach

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... @codyhochstenbach.bsky.social

Across Europe, the financial sector has pushed up house prices. It's a political timebomb | Tim White We’ve been living in a great experiment: can finance provide basic human rights such as housing? The answer is increasingly no, says researcher and writer Tim White

I have an article in the Guardian today on how finance capitalism is wreaking havoc on housing across Europe www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

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Check the paper out if you like:
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...