The Tents Were Easier To Move

Portuguese police cleared housing protest camps overnight, according to the Guardian.

The tents, it turns out, were the part of the housing problem that could be removed on a schedule.

A protest camp is not a housing development. Clearing one is not a housing policy. The distinction ought to be visible from space, yet public life regularly invites us to admire the efficiency of removing a complaint as though the grievance has gone into the same truck.

Imagine a city’s housing dashboard with two columns: homes people can afford, and people reminding officials that they cannot afford homes. The second column must be tremendously tempting. Progress is so much easier to photograph.

Before: tents. After: paving. Somewhere, a consultant is choosing the font for a presentation called Delivery.

This is not an argument that every protest can occupy every public place indefinitely. There are genuine questions about access, safety and the rights of other people using a city. Those questions deserve answers. They do not eliminate the question that brought the protesters there.

If an administration can explain at length where a tent is not permitted, it should bring comparable energy to explaining where an ordinary person can actually live.

That answer will be harder. Housing requires sustained choices about land, construction, regulation, public investment and who benefits from a city’s success. You cannot complete it by restoring the view across a square.

But difficulty is not a good reason to confuse the two jobs. A landlord does not accept an unobstructed view of public order in place of the rent.

The useful test comes after the equipment has left and the photographs have been taken. Are the people protesting a housing problem any closer to a solution, or have they merely been moved beyond the edge of the official picture?

A clear square can be an attractive sight. It is still a very drafty substitute for a home.

Source: The Guardian, October 25.