The Politics of “Parental Co-Habitation”: Austerity,Household, and the Social Evils of Dependency

The household as a social formation is being assigned a renewed function in the provision of social welfare via neoliberal austerity politics. Government inaction regarding housing provision is forcing millions of young adults into “parental co-habitation”. In contrast to the dominant ideological view of the family as a school of liberty through the provision of welfare, this article argues that the dependence of millions of young adults on the parental household is degenerative both for the individual “recipient” and for the future democratic character of the polity. Mobilizing a Neo-Roman analysis of Liberty, I argue that housing policy is promoting the long-term creation of “slaves” as part of a wider strategy of oligarchic domination. The article seeks to articulate an explicitly political theoretical critique of “parental co-habitation” and advocates for directed government action in the area of housing provision to secure the autonomy and independence of a generation otherwise reduced to “slavishness”.     

Stuck in the middle? Danish social housing associations between state,market and civil society

This article analyses the political future of the social housing movement in Denmark. It argues that the social housing sector has lost the political identity, and hence legitimacy, derived from being a central party in post war welfare state building. It now needs to revise its political identity in order to survive in a changing political, social and economic environment. The article argues that the sector is caught in a cross fire between state, market and civil society regulation. In developing active, rather than re‐active, future strategies it therefore has to take a three dimensional dependency relation into account.     

Rights to Housing: Reviewing the Terrain and Exploring a Way Forward

Exacerbated by the specificity of housing as a welfare good, debates on housing, citizenship and rights are complex and often confusing. This article attempts to clarify the debate on rights-based approaches in the field of housing, shelter and homelessness. It focuses on the philosophical distinction between “natural” and “socially constructed” rights, and suggests that a plausible “third way” may be found by using Martha Nussbaum’s “central human capabilities” approach as a foundation for universal human rights. “Citizenship” is proposed as a conceptual bridge between the philosophical discourse on rights and its practical application in specific political contexts. For this purpose, T.H. Marshall’s classic division between “civil” and “social” citizenship rights is translated into a distinction between “legal” and “programmatic” rights to housing. The article demonstrates that it is possible to object to the notion of natural and/or human rights in the housing field, and still be in favour of clearly delimited legal rights to housing for homeless people and others in acute need. Conversely, one may be in sympathy with the discourse of universal moral rights, but be sceptical about the allegedly “atomizing” implications of individually enforceable legal rights.     

Centring Housing in Political Economy

The issue of “housing” has generally not been granted an important role in post-war political economy. Housing-as-policy has been the preserve of social policy analysis and of a growing field of housing studies; housing-as-market has been confined to mainstream economics. This paper insists that political-economic analysis can no longer remain relatively indifferent to the housing question since housing is implicated in the contemporary capitalist political economy in numerous critical, connected and very often contradictory ways. The paper conceptualizes this implication by identifying the multiple roles of housing when “capital” – the essential “stuff” of political economy – is considered from the perspective of each of its three primary, mutually constitutive guises: as process of circulation, as social relation and as ideology. Mobilizing these three optics to provide a critical overall picture of housing-in-political-economy (more than a political economy of housing), we draw on and weave together the many vital contributions of housing research to our evolving understanding of capitalism.     

Housing Homeless People: Local Mobilization of Federal Resources to Fight NIMBYism

Local sentiments are rarely favorable to human service facilities. City governments and neighborhood organizations frequently utilize zoning restrictions to exclude various community facilities, including services and housing for homeless people. This exclusionary phenomenon is commonly referred to as “not‐in‐my‐backyard” or “NIMBYism.” The power of NIMBYism is grounded in the local autonomy afforded municipalities concerning land use policies. However, recent cases suggest that the tradition of local authority over certain types of land uses is being reexamined and, even more frequently, challenged at the extra‐local level. Given this trend, the purpose of this article is to question the assumption that local government will be able to preserve their authority over housing for homeless people. Using a case study of a local zoning battle over a proposed housing development for homeless people, the author argues that recent changes in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s governance over Fair Housing Law enforcement and administration of Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance funding, coupled with the agency’s more aggressive position on housing discrimination, may already have changed the balance of power on this issue. By examining the process by which a non‐profit organization in Albany, New York, was able to reach a settlement with the city concerning a zoning denial by mobilizing federal resources, the author attempts to highlight a possible emerging federal role in facilitating local mobilization against NIMBYism as it applies to housing for homeless individuals.     

Evaluating housing policies from an income‐distribution perspective—The case of Sweden

One purpose of this article is to examine under what conditions the impact of housing policies on the distribution of income becomes a major focus of interest. First we review various arguments in favour of tying transfers to specific types of consumption, and outline the historical development of Swedish housing policies in this light. We find that the interest in the impact of housing subsidies on the distribution of income stems from the 1970s when the housing supply became more adequate. We argue that the Swedish housing allowance system is of special interest in connection with income distribution considerations. The system's impact on the income distribution is evaluated here with the help of a microsimulation model. It is shown to be quite efficient in the sense that it consistently benefits households with a low “equivalent” income, i.e. a low income in relation to needs. We also find that the new housing allowance system has a crucial impact on the distributional outcome of the 1991 tax‐benefit reform, a major reform package in Sweden which includes large cuts in housing subsidies.     

Urban History Matters: Explaining the German–American Homeownership Gap

The homeownership rate in the United States has continuously been about 20 percentage points higher than that of Germany. This homeownership gap is traced back to before the First World War at the urban level. Existing approaches, relying on socio-economic factors, demographics, culture or housing policy, cannot explain the persistence of these differences in homeownership. This article fills this explanatory gap by making a path-dependence argument: it argues that nineteenth-century urban conditions either began to create the American suburbanized single-family house cities or compact multi-unit-building cities, as in Germany. US cities developed differently from German ones because they lacked feudal shackles, were governed as “private cities” and gave easier access to mortgages and building land. The more historically suburbanized a city, the lower its homeownership rate today. Economic and political reinforcing mechanisms kept the two countries on their paths. The article’s contribution is to give a historical and city-focused answer to a standing question in the housing literature.     

The Danish housing market: Housing policies for different housing tenure

Since 1987 interest and publication in Norwegian housing policies have increased significantly. This article deepens and widens my earlier published work on Norwegian housing policy, and it responds to some earlier reviews of my work. The central themes of the article are that Norway has used state policy to develop its housing sector over many decades; that since the mid‐1970s policy makers have had to adjust their housing system to national and international macro‐economic change; and that in a comparative perspective, Norway has pursued housing policies which have important anti‐poverty elements, some egalitarianism, and some useful choice and efficiencies. Norway has used balanced state, market, and self‐help roles to develop its housing sector, and the institutional framework in which these roles operate has been reformed since the late‐1970s in the light of changing economic, social, and political conditions. Changes in the international economy have been particularly significant as Norway depends upon the international economy to sustain its living standards, including its housing standards.     

城镇化快速进程中的住房需求分析——基于山西省城镇住房调查数据

基于山西省城镇住房调查以及《山西统计年鉴》等数据,预测山西"十三五"期间总人口、城镇人口、城镇住房年均需求量,得出各类住房年均需求量及所占比例;提出完善城镇住房供应体系,以及加快发展共有产权住房的对策建议,为山西省和我国中西部做好住房保障工作和住房发展规划提供借鉴。     

Model for the evaluation of the quality of housing 1 management

This article takes as its starting point the observation that “responsibility” is a concept widely used in housing management today and in connection with organizational change within housing management companies. Results of an anthropologically oriented organizational field study of the empirically given meaning of the “responsibility” concept are reported. The study concerns a housing company in which the concept played a central role in reorganizing local management. The managers and caretakers of the company were followed in their work and interviewed regarding a reorganization of the housing management service in which each caretaker was given “total responsibility” for an estate or housing unit composed of 65–180 flats and what this reorganization meant. The results are presented in narrative style and with illustrative case studies, the performative definition of “responsibility” here being focused upon.     

CONTESTING THE FINANCIALIZATION OF URBAN SPACE: COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS AND THE STRUGGLE TO PRESERVE AFFORDABLE RENTAL HOUSING IN NEW YORK CITY

As cities have become both site and object of capital accumulation in a neoliberal political economy, the challenges to community practice aimed at creating, preserving, and improving affordable housing and neighborhoods have grown. Financial markets and actors are increasingly central to the workings of capitalism, transforming the meaning and significance of mortgage capital in local communities and redrawing the relationship between housing and urban inequality. This article addresses the integration of housing and financial markets through the case of “predatory equity,” a wave of aggressive private equity investment in New York City's affordable rental sector during the mid‐2000s real estate boom. I consider the potential for community organizations to develop innovative, effective, and progressive practices to contest the impact of predatory equity on affordable housing. Highlighting how organizations employed discursive and empirical tactics as well as tactics that reworked the sites, spaces, and structures of finance, this research speaks to the political possibility of contemporary community practice.     

Accommodating discontent: youth,conflict and the housing question in Hong Kong

Young people across many societies face growing problems in making the transition from the parental home to independent living. Rising house prices and the lack of affordable alternatives to home ownership is most commonly blamed. This paper explores these issues in relation to young people in Hong Kong. The paper argues that the housing question in Hong Kong has distinct local characteristics and cannot be disconnected from wider political and economic tensions. It also shows that the housing choices and views of young people are shaped by more than issues of cost and access. The paper draws on a unique data-set which explores the attitudes and expectations with regard to housing among young people in Hong Kong. Addressing the housing problem is widely regarded as a political priority and essential to maintain social cohesion. However, political imperatives and economic interests are pulling in different directions.     

Residential inequality in Sweden: A conceptual distinction

This article focuses on two concepts that have been used to study the living conditions of different social groups in Sweden, “residential segregation” and “housing market segmentation”. Distinctions between the two concepts are made in reference to four areas. Although the relation of the groups in question to a basic social inequality is a point of contention in the tradition of residential segregation, when it comes to housing market segmentation the literature more clearly points to a basic inequality in society. Both concepts imply a certain physical hierarchy associated with the residential living of specific social groups. In reference to both concepts one can point to additional attributes that make one or more residential areas or particular form of tenure more advantageous or attractive than others. Finally in reference to residential segregation one would generally assume that the extra benefits from living in a higher quality area would cost more. A similar assumption, however, cannot be made using the concept of housing market segmentation. The attempt to highlight questions of housing tenure by considering them under a separate concept has clear merits. The next step is to explore how these two phenomena, in some circumstances, interact with each other.     

Affordable Housing Plans in London and New York: Between Marketplace and Social Mix

The article reviews and critically analyzes contemporary housing policies and plans in London and New York in the context of neoliberal urban governance. In both cities, we find severe housing affordability problems, an increasing dependence on market provision of affordable housing, and a gradual shift from supporting low- and moderate-income residents to promoting housing for households around and above the median income. Affordable housing plans in both cities also link their “marketplace” orientation to “social mix” objectives. The article addresses some socio-spatial implications of these plans and raises concerns regarding the implementation and unintended consequences of mixed-income housing. The conclusion discusses ideas and tools for more equitable affordable housing policies. Finally, we suggest that our analysis of the policy trends in London and New York and the implications we draw may be relevant to other global and globalizing cities, which face similar affordability concerns and rely on the marketplace to address housing needs.     

Economics,politics, and housing finance

Some recent work in housing research seems to downplay the role of politics in forming the content of housing policy. Building on the “power resources” and “state autonomy” approaches developed in welfare state research, this article outlines an explanatory framework including ideological and constituent factors most important to policy choice, as well as such institutional factors which may hamper or help policy choice. Using the Swedish debate over the 1984 housing tax proposal, it is shown that parties on each side of the capital‐labour divide recommend policy alternatives which are (a) in line with their ideological preferences, and (b) conducive to satisfying the perceived demands of the parties’ main constituencies. It is concluded that while economic factors may initiate policy action, ideological, political, and institutional factors are decisive for the content of such action.     

Understanding changing housing aspirations: a review of the evidence

Abstract

This article reviews the literature on changing housing aspirations and expectations in contemporary housing systems. It argues that there is a conceptual and definitional gap in relation to the term ‘housing aspirations’, as distinct from expectations, preferences, choices and needs. The article sets out working definitions of these terms, before discussing the evidence on changing housing (and related) systems. Emerging research has begun to consider whether trends such as declining homeownership, affordability concerns and precarious labour systems across a range of countries are fundamentally changing individuals’ aspirations for the forms of housing they aim to access at different stages of their lives. Whilst much of the research into housing aspirations has been considered in terms of tenure, and homeownership in particular, this article suggests that research needs to move beyond tenure and choice frameworks, to consider the range of dimensions that shape aspirations, from the political economy and the State to socialization and individuals’ dispositions for housing.     

In its Triumph,an Irony in Democratic Representation

Owing much of its power to America's emergence as a power on the world stage, the McMillan Commission plan for Washington, DC, achieved its goal of establishing a monumental core at the heart of the city that could be considered “worthy of the nation.” Its very success, however, signaled the growing distance between capital and city. As strong a cultural representation of national democratic values as the central core remains, it provokes resentment among Washington residents who are denied full political representation in that same government.     

Politics and housing markets—four normative arguments

The normative question of markets and politics in housing is discussed in relation to theories of welfare economics and political philosophy. The point of departure is a general presumption in favour of market solutions, based on both procedural ("negative freedom") and instrumental ("maximum utility") arguments. Four types of counter‐arguments are discussed against the background of the specific conditions of housing.

The procedural arguments based on negative freedom or democracy are not found to be conclusive. The existence of transaction costs and externalities makes it questionable whether market solutions in housing could maximize consumer utility. Alternative values to utility have certain paternalistic implications, though political intervention may sometimes be justified in terms of physiological needs, positive freedom or social citizenship. From an empirical point of view the presumption in favour of market solutions may still be defensible, since housing provision in the Western world is ultimately based on market contracts and not on state allocation.     

Mortgage-equity release: the potential of housing wealth for future Dutch retirees

Interest in the use of housing wealth for future retirees is a topic of growing interest amongst policymakers and scientists. Owner-occupiers who are outright owners have lower housing expenses than tenants do, and they have substantial nest eggs. Mortgage markets leapt on this development and offers special products for the elderly, with which they could release their housing wealth. The question in this paper involves the extent to which households build housing equity (i.e. wealth) that could be released. This question is particularly interesting for the Netherlands, the country with the highest mortgage debt per capita in the European Union. This paper aims to combine two different theoretical debates: the debate on “the trade-off between owner-occupation and the welfare state” and the debate on the “life cycle theory”. It introduces the concept of the equity-to-value ratio, which is derived from the trade-off theory, and reveals the extent to which the people in the Netherlands accumulate housing wealth. This ratio shows that households do build equity. Further analysis indicates that this equity is not built as much by repaying the loan as it is by taking advantage of house price increases.     

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT,HOUSING AND ZONING: A TALE OF TWO CITIES

Extensive economic development and central business district expansion generate both positive and negative public impacts; assessing those impacts is a major challenge for urban social and economic analysts. For students of urban politics and policy processes, the strategies and conflict patterns surrounding the generation and distribution of these impacts are of central interest. This paper examines exactive zoning/housing trust fund programs in San Francisco and Boston…the most far-reaching examples of emerging policies adopted by cities to shift pan of the public costs of private economic development back to the developer. The paper suggests that two conditions must be present for exaction programs to be implemented: (1) CBD demand so high that monies can be “creamed off” for redistribution without causing developers to “exit,” and (2) the mobilization of community and neighborhood interests to counter pro-CBD-growth advocates. The exaction programs in both cities, though not panaceas, appear to be generating substantial funds for housing.