John Kampfner
speaker
122 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2026
last heard 30 May
John Kampfner’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Yes, and you're right in giving that historical context, because also if you think of America and you think of Britain, we weren't, like Ireland, we weren't in the situation we're in now historically.
We had proud, multifarious public social housing.
That was the whole boom after the Second World War, and in America's case, you know, the New Deal happened,
And in Britain in the 40s and into the 50s, Labour and Conservative governments, particularly the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan, were building public and social housing.
And it was for everyone.
It wasn't for the most embattled, the most disadvantaged in society.
It didn't become the residual place.
And in Vienna...
which is my topic for the housing chapter, since the 1920s, since the end of the First World War, when Vienna was a disease-ridden, impoverished city, long gone were the imperial glories of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
they decided to embark on this extraordinary public housing building.
And now, in 2026, you have 60%, 6-0% of Vienna's population living in public housing of such a quality that...
significant architects, global architects, want to build public housing much more than they do private housing.
Yes, and initially, most of all, by the safety.
The guy who is basically responsible for the city housing authority, who is in charge of showing delegations around, says that the invariable response of American delegations is literally to freak out at the prospect of getting off the chartered bus
that arrives at the entrance to one of these public housing projects.
And he says, right, everybody, let's go for a walk through the project.
To which the response is inevitably, oh my God, we can't do that.
You know, that's not safe.
That's a disaster.
And he says, no, actually, everything is fine.
Showing 61–80 of 122 · page 4 of 7
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