Mobilizing the paradox of the everyday crisis: A cultural geographic perspective on urban crisis research

This essay uses the example of the housing affordability crisis, fleshing out how the everyday and its contestations are a fruitful lens in urban crisis research. Due to constant confrontations with the housing affordability crisis – in our streets and neighbourhoods, in the media, in public discourse, in our own homes – there is an everydayness to struggles over affordable and adequate housing, whether we are directly impacted by housing insecurity or not, what I call the paradox of the everyday crisis. Building on this, the essay unfolds two arguments: on the one hand, I believe that we can come to a different and more nuanced understanding of urban crises by applying the lens of the everyday and learning from the cultural artefacts and media we are surrounded by. On the other hand, I argue that we have to confront the very notion of the everyday in order to move beyond a normalized state of (housing) crisis and de-normalize the current condition of perpetual urban crisis. Thus, I contend that a cultural geographic perspective focusing on the everyday could open up a productive space for intervention.