The reporting begins!
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Dear ‘Who Does It Best?’ crowdfunders,
Spring is in full throttle, Wojciech has been out biking a lot, Katz has a lot of freckles all of a sudden, and as you learned in our last newsletter, we are multiplying like rabbits..
Each and every one of our stories have brought us surprises we didn’t see coming at all. That’s the best kind of reporting. Maja and Uršula have been teaching us all about childcare in Slovenia, Croatia, and Italy. More on that later! Wojciech was recently in Amsterdam, and aside from allowing Katz to pamper him on a rare night away from his parental duties, he crossed this tiny country as much as you possibly can, travelling to Breda - and even crossing over into Belgian Antwerp and Gent.
HOUSING
Katz was feeling a little stressed this weekend, like she wanted to carry on digging into housing policy in spite of the glorious weather in Amsterdam - but she caved and was persuaded to go to Museum ‘t Schip where her friend works. And guess what! The first thing she saw in their collection: a printed copy of the first ever Housing Act in the Netherlands, passed in 1901.
A serendipitous find in Amsterdam’s Het Schip museum
The whole exhibition was about how the country’s first housing law came to be. This whole “let go and things will happen by themselves” karma stuff works pretty rapidly on Katz, it would seem. It was this law that for the first time required affordable housing in the Netherlands, and also that homes were required to meet a bare minimum - clean water, and separate bedrooms for parents and children. And thus, the invention of unlivable buildings! Katz learned this was all triggered by a huge housing crisis as thousands of people moved from the countryside to the city in the wake of the industrial revolution, on the hunt for work. This is, of course, not our first rodeo. The museum even had a furnished replica of one of the first social homes, complete with a radio menu - nerding galore.
So! Keep your ears peeled for more on the Netherlands’ early housing policy in the episode.
Elsewhere in the housing episode, Katz would love your input:
Paris City Hall seems to be making interesting moves in buying property back from the private market. Do you know of any interesting experts or projects in Paris? Email us at hello@europeanspodcast.com.
Finland has had a policy to eradicate homelessness since 2008. We’re wondering if this influences the price of housing for people who are not homeless but precarious, like young people for example?
Know of any places where policies are actually noticeably, tangibly making people’s lives easier on the housing market (other than Vienna and Finland)? It’s slim pickings, and we want some hope, so let us know!
Finally, Spain has some very interesting issues as a country that is more home-ownership based. In the last newsletter, we spoke about the tension of the homeowner/renter divide, and we are curious how differently/similarly things shake out in Spain. Know any housing economists, or just people involved in an interesting project? Let us know if you have any leads there.
DRUGS
Wojciech had the luckiest reporting trip of his journalism career — and that’s despite getting stuck in Antwerp for a night due to a Belgian railway workers' strike. Why so lucky? Because the right people kept falling into his lap. He managed to speak with a wide range of voices: from drug users to harm reduction specialists, social workers to policymakers, coffee shop managers, and even a drug dealer who mistook him for a desperate tourist knocking on the doors of multiple coffeeshops in Breda, where only locals are allowed to buy cannabis.
But beyond luck, the trip became a deeply important and perspective-shifting experience for Wojciech. The issues he had been reading about for months came vividly to life, and he remains profoundly moved and inspired by what he witnessed at a harm reduction center in Amsterdam. The extraordinary patience, total absence of judgment, and unwavering commitment to helping others left a lasting impression — and it all shapes the story you’re going to hear.
Scenes from Wojciech’s roving reporting in the Netherlands and Belgium
CHILDCARE
Maja and Uršula, our two Slovenian journalists and mothers, are on a journey of (self)discovery, exploring family policies across Europe!
Maja took on a gladiatorial schedule of interviews in Rome and Milan and was surprised to discover that the idea of a traditional, loud Italian family – where the whole village helps raise a child – is quite outdated. You know, those scenes where three or even four generations cook and sit together at a long table while children run around with muddy pants and T-shirts stained with tomato sauce… In bigger cities, children are mainly cared for in kindergartens – if they can get a spot. There is still a traditional understanding of family, but more in the sense that the mother - even though she works - takes care of kids and fathers are not so involved in the upbringing of their children. Then again, our research suggests that traditional roles are still lingering in every country in Europe, to a greater or lesser extent.
Maja’s been out and about in Rome and Milan
Uršula traveled to the Croatian capital, Zagreb. Among many interesting interviews, she spent time in a corporate kindergarten located in the same building as the bank where most of the enrolled children’s parents work. She was greeted at the entrance with the smell of lunch – a green bean and poultry stew – and the children were just returning from a walk. A preschool teacher showed Uršula mindfulness exercises, where she had to imagine being a balloon that inflates and deflates while breathing deeply. Conclusion: maybe we should all be starting mindfulness exercises, imagining we are balloons, as early as preschool?!
Uršula’s been learning that mindfulness is not just for pre-schoolers
We’re already finding that approaches to childcare policies are very different across Europe. Here are just a few interesting facts that have come up on our reporting journey so far:
Romania offers a surprisingly long parental leave. But at the expense of mothers who postpone or even pause their careers because of two years’ maternity leave.
In Slovenia, kindergarten for the second child is free of charge.
In Sweden, fathers are heavily involved in childcare and upbringing - which might have a lot to do with how parental and paternity leave is organised.
On some Croatian islands, municipalities provide thousands of euros in financial support upon the birth of a child – partly to encourage higher birth rates.
In Italy, one could say that there are “countries within the country.” While in the north – for example, in the region of Trentino-Alto Adige – people seem to be having more children partly thanks to sufficient kindergarten availability, the south tells a different story.
Alright, that’s enough from us! Have any questions or ideas? We’d love to hear them!
Love and radio,
Katz, Wojciech, Maja and Uršula