For young families with small children, housing in Prague is too expensive or unaffordable, says social geographer Martin Ouředníček from Charles University.
Statistically, there are plenty of apartments in the capital of the Czech Republic. “The migration of residents from Prague in search of housing is influenced by the many foreigners who come here, the many investment apartments and the fact that construction has begun around the city,” explains Ouředníček.
In the interview, he explains, among other things, why there are so many foreigners living in Prague, why there are no schools in a third of the municipalities around Prague, what are the villages of old women and why there are still few vacant apartments, even though fewer children are being born.
Is the housing crisis in the capital of the Czech Republic new or was it difficult to find an apartment here before?
The housing crisis in Prague is permanent, it is nothing new. When I, for example, graduated from university in the early 1990s, there was no longer complex housing construction as there was during socialism. In the past, young families actually received an apartment from the state or from a company for free.
In the 1990s, the situation was hopeless. There were no mortgages, and with the salaries at that time, one did not save for housing. I solved it by building a house outside the city with the help of my family. That was the only option at the time to get a mortgage with twelve percent interest.
I know that the current generation complains about the housing crisis, but at that time I thought that I would never live, that in the next ten years I would not earn enough to buy a house from my salary. At that time, rents were gradually deregulated and increased manifold.
Can it be said, for what reasons do people move outside of Prague today?
Among the younger generation, these are often economic reasons. However, some of them did not completely flee from the city, they are still connected to it and may stay in Prague to work.
So what affects moving to or outside of Prague?
We do not know the exact reasons for moving, statisticians stopped investigating them in 2004. According to the data, the most intensive process today is the moving of mainly young people to the outskirts or even beyond the city limits. Next is international migration, which is the determining factor that sets all other processes in motion. And then it’s an escape from the cities to the countryside.
These three processes are crucial for migration from and to cities. People coming from abroad are the strongest players on the Prague real estate market – and I don’t mean those coming from Ukraine or Slovakia. I mean really economically strong foreign, albeit temporary, immigrants who mainly occupy the centers of the largest cities.
However, we are talking about Prague only, maybe Brno. There are not so many foreigners in other cities, or are there?
Twenty percent of the population