We should be applauding social housing projects, but resist the rhetoric that sees council housing as the only solution to the housing crisis, says Owen Hopkins.

Donald Trump may have been vanquished, but Trumpism is still alive and well, as evidenced by the 71 million votes he received ? the highest ever for a US presidential candidate, apart, of course, from his vanquisher, president-elect Joe Biden.
After four years of Trump, we've become used to hearing about right-wing populism, which has spawned manifestations across the world, from Bolsonaro in Brazil and Orbán in Hungary to Boris Johnson in England. But populism is not confined to the right, it is also alive and kicking on the left ? for whom architecture is central to linking the macro to the micro, just as it is for the right. A neat illustration of the micro scale can be seen in a new council housing project in Greenwich in south-east London by the British architect Peter Barber, which he recently tweeted out. It's the type of project that would be familiar to anyone who has followed Barber's career since he came to prominence with the Donnybrook Quarter in Hackney in 2006.
Barber's commitment to the social value of architecture has made him an almost sainted figure among the architectural commentariat
Since then, Barber has built a reputation as quite possibly Britain's leading housing architect, renowned for his cleverly planned and generously detailed projects. Aligned with this is Barber's commitment to the...