Living futures

My home

Where will you be living in 2023? What kind of housing will you live in? House? Flat? High-tech apartment? Old terrace? Urban? Rural?

This citizenship and geography resource for key stage 3 and 4 students seeks to engage students in an informed debate about the housing of tomorrow.

Housing is a major issue in everyone’s life. In the UK at present there is talk of a housing crisis and an urgent need for hundreds of thousands of new homes to be built. This situation has led to calls for a national debate on the future of housing in the country, a debate which is now underway.

For a number of years housing has been moving up the agenda at local,  regional and national levels. One of the key questions facing today’s young people must be ‘where will I live?’

There are crucial decisions to be made about the housing of the future:

• How much new housing is needed?
• Where will this housing be built?
• What types of housing should we aim for?
• How will homes be designed?
• Who will build them?
• How can we ensure that new housing will meet the needs of future generations?
• What should be done with the existing housing stock?

The aim of this resource is to:

• help key stage 3 and 4 students understand the main issues relating to UK housing
• engage students in an informed debate about the housing of tomorrow
• present a number of scenarios for housing of the future
• support an educational project, linked to the national curriculum, which effectively resources citizenship and geography at key stage 3 and 4.

The resource is flexible, and can be used in a number of ways within the classroom. It contains printable teaching materials, examples of students debates, other illustrated reports on ground-breaking housing developments in the UK, teacher’s notes, a glossary and curriculum information.

Published on 10 May 2006