Housing Europe Communications Director, Michalis Goudis took part in one of these year’s International Visitors’ Programmes organized by the North Rhine-Westphalian (NRW) Office of Culture (NRW KULTURsekretariat) and had the chance for a number of field visits in Germany’s most populous state. Michalis reports how investment in affordable housing and in culture can be the drivers for the transformation of a place that has left its glorious industrial past behind.

Every month we introduce you to one of the people leading the work of our member organisations. In this edition, we just took the train to nearby Charleroi in the heart of Wallonia to meet Alain Rosenoer. Alain manages Sociéte Wallonne du Logement (SWL) which is the Walloon Housing Company. He provides with insights concerning the perception of housing in the French-speaking region of Belgium and shares some thoughts about the current challenges. Plus, as usual, he unveils his way of balancing life with work.

The annual GdW conference on November 14th, 2017 in Berlin focused on the increasing differences between booming large cities and depleting regions. GdW president Axel Gedaschko called for a joint effort of the federal government and the “Länder” (federal states) with a focus on rural areas. The idea is to identify “anchor cities”, medium-sized cities of 20.000 to 100.000 inhabitants that have continued to develop their trade, communication and meeting areas in the last decades.