Athens is characterized as having no distinct housing pattern. A previous,
general pattern existed of high income housing in the center and low income
housing in the periphery combined with an east west tendency of low-income
neighborhoods on the western edge of the agglomeration, and high incomes
to the east. However, migrants live in clusters within more upscale areas
and areas around the CBD. Also, some poor areas to the west still lack infrastructure
and city services. This pattern is dissolving. The northern and southern
suburbs are developing as very wealthy areas with expensive retail and access
to high cost office space.
The lack of pattern is due to a lack of planning; approximately one third
of housing in Athens has gone up illegally. Athens has been called an urban
strategy vacuum. In this framework of little to no strategic planning, unpatterned
development comes as no surprise and has also resulted in the covering of
97% of the land with concrete or other impervious material and population
density of 926 people per square kilometer.
One of the central neighborhoods in the city is the Plaka, a residential
area of about 3.5 square kilometers. The area was populated since ancient
times and the streets are said to be carved out of antiquity. The Plaka
is the one area to have survived the construction of the ugly high rises
that replaced the neoclassical city (1840's) in the 1950's and 1960's. Most
of the housing was rebuilt in the 1840's to reassert Greekness over the
nations recent levantine past Classical and neoclassical architecture dominate
the neighborhood except in the section known as the Anafiotika. This section
resembles an island. The houses are white washed with red roofs and tucked
in between rocks. After independence, immigrants who needed housing and
land built Anafiotika largely at night.
Greece does not have a mass housing policy. The Workers Housing Organization
was founded after the 1923 Asia Minor disaster when refugees inundated the
country. The organization provides low-cost housing to families with low
incomes. Low-income families are also given plots of land and then employ
the exchange system to get housing built. This system leads to poor planning
and blocks upon blocks of high-rise apartments (see picture). Also, two
subsidies exist to homebuyers- they can get a low interest loan from the
state owned Mortgage Bank and first time homebuyers can deduct the loan
interest from their taxes.
When thinking about housing in Athens some special attention must be paid
to the peculiarities of the Athenian and Greek real estate system. First,
the National Land Register has begun. It will be the first unified record
of property and ownership. Hopefully, it will cut down on land disputes
that are too common. Second, only 20% of houses are bought using bank loans.
Third, an exchange method of property ownership and improvement exists.
In the exchange system an owner of a piece of land gives it to a construction
company in return for a share of the apartments to be built. This system
does not promote public space (for the contractor gives the owner 35-40%)
and has been blamed for the endemic poor planning of 1960's. Fourth, individuals,
not institutional investors as in the United States or England, dominate
the Greek real estate market. The homeownership rate is 77%, one of the
highest in the world. Hopefully the National Land Register will increase
investment in real estate, leading to further utilization of banks and other
tertiary functions.