Lifestyle Ideas of House Builders and Housing Investors

Abstract

Builders and investors are major contributors to the framing and construction of lifestyles. Here, we explore the emergence and communication of the lifestyle ideas of house builders and housing investors, and characterize builders and investors with respect to societal and cultural changes. In doing so we draw on a content analysis of housing advertisements published in Basel, Switzerland, from 1870 to 2007. In these documents we found a transition from a class-based society, which is usually defined by physical and socio-economic characteristics, to a society that increasingly refers to lifestyles differentiated by symbolic, cultural codes. Builders and investors mainly communicate perceived mainstream needs and stereotypical lifestyle ideas. Only a small group consisting of non-profit and public housing investors tend to act as innovators of lifestyles, meaning that a certain cultural distance to the (commercial) housing industry may be necessary to escape from its peer group orientation. At least some commercial investors with a long-term investment perspective are increasingly open to emerging demands. However, the relative dominance of institutional investors and large building companies in urban housing in Switzerland, a country which has a housing renter-shaped society, may well bar local, independent and more creative housing entrepreneurs from market access.

Key Words:

• Housing supply
• Advertising
• Marketing
• Lifestyles
• Switzerland

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the Swiss National Science Foundation for funding this research. We would like to thank the many individuals, enterprises and institutions for making marketing documents available to us. Thanks also to Marc Gilg, Werner Schaeppi and Roland Zaugg for their valuable advice. Finally, thanks to Margrit Hugentobler, Berit Junker, Roderick Lawrence, Martin Schaffner, Roman Seidl and Michael Stauffacher for their comments on earlier versions of this paper.