In day 3, MIPIM's other hot topic was about housing , affordable houses and flexible houses for people who have different income levels. MIPIM's new session called ''How to build the best quality housing for the greatest number of people ?'' discussed key strategies of designing flexible and affordable housing over Lisboa, Torino and London. 

With ever more people living in urban areas, many cities are becoming overcrowded and too expensive. So, the talk asked how do we live now ? What are the new ways of living in cities ? This session explores new types of housing- more flexible, more affordable or more collaborative - and how they adapt to today’s reality.

The session moderated by Anette Galskjøt, CEO, IFHP and other speakers in the talk were; James Murray, Deputy Mayor for Housing and Residential Development, Greater London Authority, Fernando Medina, Mayor, Câmara Municipal de Lisboa and a representative of Torino.

James Murray discussed housing crisis for London and talked about manageable strategies for affordable housing and he said ''we give a tool set to deal with housing crisis in London. We explain right cost board for investors who want to invest to London.''

The most important question asked in the session was ''how do you measure economical impacts of city for the new investments?.'' The speakers noted that every city's dynamics are different and has different levels of income and people are living afar from city centers but it is a big problem because the city should be a place where agglomeration takes place. 

''Since each city has different context- social, economical or political, the tool set you need to develop should also be different,'' said speakers. Anette Galskjøt's other question was; are there any obstacles to develop these strategies?.

''Obstacles are different for each country,'' experts added. ''Investment models change according to that country's economic, social or political balance.''

For Torino, a representative stated that Torino's social housing is funded by private sectors and Torino offers a mixing programme for housing. Housing is not an issue indeed, the question is how do you provide affordable housing for people who has different levels of income with high-level construction models, technology, innovation and more importantly flexibility in spaces.

In addition to these, the session discussed 'temporary housing' or 'conversion of existing' houses considering London's housing crisis. James Murray said ''we have interesting projects for temporary housing built with off-site construction models and modern technology.''

For Torino, the expert stated that ''the country does not only offer temporary housing for homeless people but also for family.'' 

The experts discussed the impacts of Airbnb, a global home-sharing company, for many countries and they agreed that Airbnb has a positive impact to boost tourism for the cities. Particularly, for London, ''Airbnb forces authorities to right legislations for the cities,'' said James Murray.

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