Single-family houses are a common form of housing in Europe. Most were built in the context of the suburbanization after World War II and are now facing challenges arising from generational changes as well as increasing living and energy standards. According to the hypothesis of this paper, in several EU regions, single-family houses may face future challenges arising from oversupply and lack of adaptation to current demand. To examine this, the paper analyses the present situation and discusses the prognosis for the challenges described above regarding the three neighbouring north-western European countries Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands, based on available data and a review of country-specific characteristics of housing markets as well as national policies. Despite an impending mismatch between demand and supply, planning policies still support the emergence of new single-family houses. The comparison of Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands shows the growing polarization between shrinking and growing regions and central and peripheral sites apparent at different stages in the three countries. While a high rate of vacancies is already registered for some regions in Germany, in the Netherlands this phenomenon can only be seen near the borders and in villages within the Randstad conurbation. In Belgium also, this phenomenon is not yet widespread, but in some suburban neighbourhoods dating from the 1950's and 1960's more and more single-family houses are becoming more difficult to sell, indicating an emerging mismatch between supply and demand. This article proposes some instruments which enable municipalities to intervene in single family housing neighbourhoods which are largely dominated by private ownership. These instruments are not yet widely established in single-family housing neighbourhoods but that may become important in the future.

For some years, increased attention has been paid to the single-family housing stock in Germany and the further designation of building land by municipalities. A Germany-wide anonymous survey of municipalities sheds light on the municipalities’ land management strategies with regard to declining populations and their anticipation of future problems for the further use of the single-family housing stock. The results of the quantitative survey are supplemented by qualitative interviews with municipal experts from case studies that were selected on the basis of criteria such as population decline, old-age dependency ratio, the share of single-family homes and vacancy rates. The aims of the survey and the interviews are to assess municipal representatives’ perceptions of population decline and of the necessity of undertaking measures to deal with shrinkage. Research questions are: What measures do municipalities consider appropriate to counter population loss and falling demand for housing in shrinking regions? How important are single-family housing areas in the perception of German municipalities? The results indicate that a continued designation of building land seems to be one of the most important measures used to cope with insufficient demand. The aim is to attract new inhabitants, particularly to shrinking cities. However, this approach reinforces current problems because it lowers demand for the housing stock and increases the risk of vacancies.

The declining growth and the resulting "perforation" of settlements cause high charges for infrastructure use and decreasing municipal tax revenue, which may be regarded as a "second rent". Besides, property values decrease due to vacancy rate, the decay of rural settlements could be initiated. In order to both keep the costs for waste disposal constant as well as to develop a sustainable, compact settlement structure despite of shrinkage, synergies of overall and sectoral spatial planning should be improved. This paper points out a potential strategy to reduce expenses for the cost driver "collection of residual waste" as well as to use the waste disposal as a management tool of the settlement development. Throughout the entire process-from local migration analyses to vacancy rate and possibilities of inner urban development to waste disposal management-geo-and attribute-data were used, provided by different institutions. The data were managed, analysed and visualised by an open source geo-information and geo-database-software. Thus, the information of sectoral and overall spatial planning was overlaid and in result a sustainable, resource-efficient strategic planning is improved using a geo-information tool. Consequently, a centralisation of waste disposal could be improved by a GIS-assisted analysis of location and accessibility of central garbage containers. This centralisation is expected to allow a resource-efficient urban planning.

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