This short article is a reply to four commentaries that were written in response to our paper "Centering Housing in Political Economy". Rather than discussing each of the commentaries separately, we have chosen to distil and discuss four themes that appear important both to the commentators and to us: theory and abstraction; land rent; mortgage securitization; and the role of the state. Our discussion of theory advances the claim that theories and frameworks that take not only the economics of housing but also its politics, history, geography and institutions seriously can in principle be commensurate under the critical realist ontology suggested by two of our commentators. Our discussion of securitization adds to the existing literature on the theorization of the spatial fix and the circuits of capital. Finally, in reconsidering the housing question in political economy, we argue that you cannot today come to grips with the laws of the latter without factoring in on the centrality of the former.
In this study the housing careers of individuals are related to the development of the Swedish welfare state and its effects on the housing market.The aim of the study was to investigate if the value placed on housing standard, size, tenure and location has changed over time as the welfare state has developed. Twelve individuals in four cohorts born in 1925, 1942, 1955 and 1970 were interviewed. The most evident differences relate to the standard, size and the location of a dwelling. The older cohorts began their housing career in smaller housing with a standard that was the norm at that time. When the most basic housing needs were met, environmental and location aspects began to gain policy interest. These factors were taken into account by the younger cohorts as they entered the housing market, but also among the older as they had progressed through their housing career. A change in housing size as the household grows was not cohort-specific. Tenure was not cohort-specific, but was discussed in terms of freedom that differed between individuals rather than between cohorts.
Planning for the housing situation of an ageing population is one of the challenges of many countries. To increase our understanding of the needs of the ageing population, a nationwide survey stratified on age and municipality type was conducted. Research questions referred to the current housing situation and plans. The aim was to investigate how preferences, location, and/or the type of housing preferred changes with age and if they are housing market dependent. Results of 10-year cohorts show that the most marked change is between the cohort 75–84 years old and the oldest cohort 85+. There is a gradual change over time of moves from large to small housing, from owner-occupation to rented housing. Respondents in the major cities and in the rural or tourism-dependent municipalities are less inclined to move compared to those from other types of municipalities. The study predicts a shortage of rented apartments.
Planning for the housing situation of an ageing population is one of the challenges of many countries. To increase our understanding of the needs of the ageing population, a nationwide survey stratified on age and municipality type was conducted. Research questions referred to the current housing situation and plans. The aim was to investigate how preferences, location, and/or the type of housing preferred changes with age and if they are housing market dependent. Results of 10-year cohorts show that the most marked change is between the cohort 75-84years old and the oldest cohort 85+. There is a gradual change over time of moves from large to small housing, from owner-occupation to rented housing. Respondents in the major cities and in the rural or tourism-dependent municipalities are less inclined to move compared to those from other types of municipalities. The study predicts a shortage of rented apartments.
This study examines current governance structures related to multifamily buildings designed by single actors (developers) and operated in cooperative forms. The study analyses the long-term sustainability of the resource regime of study (multifamily buildings) and inked governance structures by applying Ostrom’s eight design principles for long-term survival of self-organized resource regimes (Common-pool resources or CPR’s). The study also searches for signs of movement towards social innovation and collective action in current governance structures. We argue that the structures governing planning, production and operation of housing cooperatives in Sweden do not fulfil the eight design principles for the long-term survival of the resource regime of study, nor do they encourage movement towards social innovation or collective action. In order to ensure the long-term survival of the resource regime of study and to increase innovation in governance structures, five adjustments are proposed; changes in the structures governing risk/profit distribution, communication, collaboration and information between actors in the Swedish cooperative housing sector.
There has been a general trend in society during the last two decades towards privatization. Although privatization has been discussed for many years in Western Europe, the rental housing sector has not yet been affected very much, with the exception of the UK. This article utilizes empirical data to explore the effects on rents and quality of housing services of the privatization of apartments by municipal housing companies located outside metropolitan areas in Sweden. Quasi-experimental methodology has been used, partly as a test of this methodology and partly because it was expected to yield better results in this context than traditional multiple regression methods. The development of the apartment stock in one town/city is compared with that in carefully selected comparison town(s). It appears that 2-5 years after privatization, rent development was lower in areas where apartments had been privatized. There are also indications that the development of the quality of housing services during the period investigated was dependent more on the specific housing company than on the type of owner (private or public). These data therefore indicate that public authorities should probably not be too worried about the short- and medium-term effects of privatization if the buyer is carefully selected. However, data availability was limited and the results therefore need to be verified.
This review article presents a systematic overview of strategies that may make home ownership affordable to more low-income households. Home ownership has been regarded as the preferred choice of tenure by most OECD countries for many decades and has often been supported with a wide range of methods that make ownership economically attractive. There are four distinct time periods of a typical “housing career”: (1) down payment accumulation stage, (2) transaction stage, (3) ownership stage and (4) selling stage. Although home ownership rates have been on the increase globally since the Second World War, recent signs indicate that this trend has been halted. However, it is argued that little is known on the actual effectiveness of most of the described policies and that a set of policies, focusing on at least the first three stages above, is needed should a government wish to encourage home ownership. Moreover, direct subsidies and grants are probably not very interesting considering the weak financial situation of most governments. Thus, selected policies would probably focus on the ability of the households to signal their characteristics and on strengthening various insurance markets so that they become open to more households at a reasonable price.
Second-home tourism’s transformative power on local communities is widely recognized through numerous studies on its social, environmental and economic effects in many parts of the world. A significant share of this literature examines how second-home tourism impacts local housing markets and access to housing. However, few studies have looked into how planning authorities navigate these impacts of second-home tourism and how they differ spatially. Based on previous studies on the heterogeneity of second-home tourism and a comprehensive interview material from 20 Swedish municipalities, this paper examines impacts on local housing markets and the management efforts by local planning authorities. The results show how second-home tourism impact housing markets very differently depending on context when it comes to growth, housing demand and effects for locals’ access to housing. The study argues for an acknowledgement of this heterogeneous geography and more context-aware second-home research that moves beyond the rural-urban dichotomy.
This article applies Hirschman’s model of exit, voice and loyalty to a Swedish case of housing renovation in a building with comparatively well-off tenants. Hirschman’s framework is particularly well suited for understanding the housing market with its heterogeneity and high transaction and attachment costs, and accordingly strong loyalty and voice. Our study indicates that the exit-voice-loyalty framework is a useful tool for analysing renovation processes, since these trigger both voice and exit behaviour. We argue that renovations can be considered as critical junctures to an existing tenant–landlord relation, thereby exposing power relations on the housing market. In the case studied, tenants were not able to affect the scope of the renovation directly, but tenant voice did affect the process as well as the outcome in other respects. The capable tenant group makes this a ”most likely case” for testing the limits of tenant influence in housing renovation processes.
This article applies Hirschman's model of exit, voice and loyalty to a Swedish case of housing renovation in a building with comparatively well-off tenants. Hirschman's framework is particularly well suited for understanding the housing market with its heterogeneity and high transaction and attachment costs, and accordingly strong loyalty and voice. Our study indicates that the exit-voice-loyalty framework is a useful tool for analysing renovation processes, since these trigger both voice and exit behaviour. We argue that renovations can be considered as critical junctures to an existing tenant-landlord relation, thereby exposing power relations on the housing market. In the case studied, tenants were not able to affect the scope of the renovation directly, but tenant voice did affect the process as well as the outcome in other respects. The capable tenant group makes this a "most likely case" for testing the limits of tenant influence in housing renovation processes.
This paper contributes to the wider discourse on sustainability and housing by showing how the dynamics of temporality and care plays out in processes of renovation. We explore five empirical cases of renovation of rental housing estates on the outskirts of Gothenburg, Sweden. Our study draws on the analysis of documents, observations, and qualitative interviews with key actors. We consider renovation a caring practice, both in the practical sense of "caring for" and in the emotional and ethical sense of "caring about". We argue that conflicts between stakeholders in renovation processes are better understood through attending to the ways in which notions of care are intertwined with the temporal organization of peoples' lives and organizational processes. We conclude that unawareness or negligence towards the various temporalities involved in renovation processes provide obstacles for collective processes of caring and raising sustainability concerns in renovation processes.
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the link between housing tenure typesand housing deprivation in 26 European countries. Empirical analyses are based onEuropean Union Survey on Income and Living Conditions 2007, enabling comparisons ofdeprivation across a large set of countries. A multilevel framework is employed. It is hypothesizedthat the organization of the rental sector inherently produces different housing marketdynamics, which is likely to affect housing deprivation rates. An integrated rental sector coveringbroader parts of the population is expected to reduce the risk of housing deprivation.Housing deprivation is measured in terms of experiencing overcrowding and while also sufferingany of the following accommodation problems: a leaking roof; no bath/shower; no indoortoilet; or a dwelling considered too dark. The findings indicate a negative association betweenthe size of the rental sector and the prevalence of housing deprivation. The organization of therental sector appears crucial and only an integrated rental sector encompassing broader partsof the population significantly reduces the prevalence of housing deprivation and its components.This association is robust in terms of confounding factors at the individual-level andcentral country-level contextual variables.
Previous research has often associated residential crowding with impoverished segments of the population, often living in distressed neighbourhoods, and detrimental consequences for crowded households. However, according to official housing standards, crowding is also common in some gentrified inner-city areas. This paper problematizes these findings in two ways: first, by discussing how the theoretical implications of traditional indicators, such as dwelling standards, can be traded off for perceptions of neighbourhood identity; and second, by comparing the socio-economic profiles of the residents in a distressed and a gentrified neighbourhood. The findings suggest that distressed crowding due to deficient economic and other resources is spatially segregated from gentrified crowding where the desire to live in attractive areas might outweigh living space considerations. These findings call for further research into people's experiences of crowding in relation to other qualities of the dwelling - in particular, the residential neighbourhood.
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.
Since the 2008 economic recession, state intervention in the real estate sector has strengthened. This article explains how housing financialization was reignited in Spain following key policy reforms in 2013. We argue that Spanish authorities managed to strategically recreate a finance-friendly environment to attract global investors. They combined financial policies, other deregulatory reforms and neoliberal measures in a coordinated manner we call a policy package. Our analysis provides evidence of the legal and political arrangements at various state levels that effectively facilitated the reanimation of a new cycle of housing financialization which caused rising inflation in prices and distress in tenants’ rights. This approach contributes to the understanding of how state-led actions foster a spatial fix to overcome financial crises by granting global speculative funds extraordinary benefits. In addition, we show how this process occurred with poor democratic accountability and was also confronted by various forms of social contestation.
The term social housing has been characterized as a “floating signifier”, i.e. a term with no agreed-upon meaning. The lack of a definition often leads to misunderstandings, rather than constructive dialogue on the advantages and disadvantages of such a system. The aim of this article is to contribute to clarity by providing a discussion on the potential defining criteria of social housing and suggesting a definition of the concept. Definitions of the term social housing and descriptions of European social housing systems used in the last eight years will be presented and discussed. Five potential defining criteria derived from the literature are evaluated as to their sufficiency and necessity for a definition.
By its universal approach, Swedish public housing has traditionally been an instrument to contribute to the national policy aim of “good housing for all”. However, the universal approach is under pressure. Demands on competitiveness and a businesslike return on investment means public housing companies are increasingly striving for profit in their everyday business. This paper analyses this development with the strategic-relational approach (SRA) and argues that a new economic imaginary has emerged, which limits the companies’ perceived possibilities to retain the universal approach. However, spatio-temporal variations are evident and the findings give evidence to ample actorial discretion for companies to negotiate the economic imaginary in the current political-economic landscape. Thus, the potential to retain the undertaking of “good housing for all” still exists, but it is unevenly actualized. How this discretion is used may be decisive for the future of the universal character of public housing in Sweden.
Public housing has been one of the primary tools mobilized in Sweden historically to fulfil citizens' right to housing. However, the nominally universal character of public housing in the Swedish context has increasingly been circumvented through processes of segregation, residualisation, gentrification and displacement. Furthermore, previous housing research points to the neoliberal shift of Sweden's housing politics since the early 1990s, encompassing the deregulation of public housing at the national level. Focusing on the example of public housing, this paper argues for a multiscalar and nuanced understanding of housing neoliberalisation in Sweden, by investigating the change of public housing locally. The political landscape of public housing in different localities has been transformed as a result of interacting trajectories of spatial restructuring, financialisation and ideological reconstruction. The paper examines this conjunctural transformation empirically through a case study of public housing in the city of Malmö.
How can struggles for housing justice act as a lens to expand housingresearchers’ understanding of the rental crisis and of the systems thatunderpin this crisis? By presenting papers from Sweden, Spain,Greece, the UK, and Australia this special issue contributes withknowledge on how housing struggles can inform new theoreticaland methodological approaches within the field of housing studies.In turn, the SI presents three tenets that together form a frameworkfor housing scholars: institutionalization as politics, tenants as poli-tical actors, and learning housing justice. We argue that it is crucialfor housing scholars to recenter on struggles for housing justice intheir readings of contemporary housing systems.
Impoverished and working-class migrant women have been the hardest hit and most exploited people during both the real estate-financial accumulation cycle and the aftermath of the 2008 crisis in Spain. Since 2009, these women have also been the key actors in outstanding civil disobedience to the neoliberal financial rule through their engagement in housing activism. How has this happened, and with what effects? Our research responds to these questions by focusing on the collective and contextualized strategies of extended struggles for social reproduction. This analytical framework integrates intersectional social structures, spatio-temporal dimensions of social reproduction, and the historical context of real-estate financialisation. Additionally, we argue that the notion of a “double horizon of political temporality” helps explain how the housing struggle evolved and identifies which social and political outcomes were produced. We suggest that this case reveals the mechanisms and impacts of similar grassroots movements challenging the current financialised dynamics of capitalism.
In addition to material, spatial and thermal standards and norms that influence the resource intensity of home environments, a key indicator of the environmental impact related to housing is found in residents’ ways of life. Of interest to the study presented in this paper is how residents’ perceptions of home and living standards relate to opinions on environmental issues and the reduction of resource use, exploring the potential and willingness to engage in low-impact ways of living. Empirical material from a questionnaire (n = 156) and interview study (n = 22) with residents in a tenant-owned housing association in Sweden provides insights into conventions and perceptions surrounding practices primarily linked to voluntary simplicity, living smaller as well as sharing spaces and resources. The study emphasizes the need for understanding residents’ perspectives and the implications this might have for targeting the resource intensity of homes in future development and policy.
Urban riots are typically carried out by individuals who live in residential areas that are relatively marginalized socially, economically and politically. Previous research has discussed several aspects of deprivation that may help explain this relationship. Contributing further to this research, we aim to explain why marginalization produces riots by developing a rationalistic specification of social mechanisms. The utility of our model is demonstrated by a case study of the 2013 Stockholm riots. The model consists of (a) general local incentives that appeal to individual motives, but only lead to participation in riots when (b) the delicate local equilibrium is destabilized by an event that (c) makes riots appear justified, risk-free and thrilling. The advantage of this rationalistic model is that it shows why other people, in other places, would have reason to act in much the same way under similar circumstances.
This article addresses how professional animal welfare inspectors and police officers produce knowledge about animal hoarding, and how they detect disconcern and come to conclusions about how to act. The specific aim is to contribute to a sociological understanding of the phenomenon of urban animal hoarding assessment by deploying the framework of “sensuous governance”. I will do so by focusing on the ways in which authorities use and record their senses of the emplaced situation – their visual, olfactory and auditory impressions – in order to make a judgement. The more general contribution concerns how the dimension of species adds to the long-lasting sociological interest in sensing as a mode of knowing about our environment. Using interview data along with animal welfare protocols from a Swedish study of human/animal relations in the city, the intersection of species, spaces and senses is put in focus.
The standard view is that rent regulation leads to a reduction in maintenance as the landlord will be able to find tenants at the regulated rent even if the level of maintenance is low. In this article, it is shown that the rent regulation system in Sweden interacts with a contract structure where the rent is allowed to increase only if the standard of the apartment is raised compared to when the apartment was new. Ordinary maintenance is included in the rent, and the rent is therefore not allowed to increase when such maintenance is carried out. It is shown that when there is a housing shortage, this system creates economic incentives for increasing the standard of apartments, even if this reduces total welfare. The result can be that quality is increased more than in a market system, and that it can increase gentrification compared to such a system. Policy proposals are also presented.
This study contributes to the extant research on foreclosure by focusing on the relevance of lender-borrower relations. Donald Black’s theory of the behaviour of law is assessed by examining the association between revocation of compulsory sale by the lender and four different variables, proxying variations in the scope, history, and frequency of contact between the lender and the borrower. This association is modelled in a logistic regression framework of micro-level data on compulsory sale and mortgage borrowers in Sweden from 2010 to 2014. The results indicate that there are more revocations in cases that are deferred by the lender. There are fewer revocations in cases with digital banks and when there are also other creditors than the lender. These empirical findings partially confirm Donald Black’s propositions about the association between the quantity of law and relational distance, and point at the importance of lender-borrower relations in explaining foreclosure outcomes.
Nussbaum’s Central Capabilities refer to the elements of a well-lived life, and many adults who experience homelessness are deprived of these capabilities. The study aim was to investigate whether service users experience different homeless services as affording or constraining capabilities. We conducted semi-structured interviews with homeless service users (n = 77) in Housing First (HF) and staircase services (SS) in eight European countries. We used thematic analysis to identify three themes: autonomy and dependency, the relational impact of living arrangements, and community interaction and stigma. While SS participants were able to address their bodily integrity and health, their higher-order capabilities were constrained by their homeless situations. HF participants described home as a base from which they could enact a wide range of capabilities indicative of a well-lived life. We conclude that housing-led service models with appropriate supports are key to affording service users’ capabilities. Practical and policy implications are discussed.
By following tenants who resist the destruction of their common yards in a post-renoviction neighbourhood of Uppsala (Sweden), this article examines how the local resistance by marginalized communities intersects with the effects of the financialization of housing. The article explores the concept of unhoming, as a violent, structural, and multi-scalar process that, in the name of urban renewal, destroys the places of marginalized communities in the capitalist city. For residents in a post-renoviction neighbourhood, the real-life experience of “creative destruction” entails navigating paradoxical and conflicting discourses, inflicting material, immaterial and emotional harm to the residents. The local resistance play out as a demand for housing justice, and as a forced balancing between patient dialogue and more confrontative action, in an increasingly authoritative context. Finally, the article suggests the use of a theoretical frame of place destruction in the analysis of contemporary urban struggles.
As a showcase for ideal urban visions, Olympic Villages encompass the utopian disposition of the Olympic Games. More precisely, Olympic Villages could be understood as a heterotopia, a theorization that stems from an analysis of their historical, conceptual, and spatial evolution over the course of the Summer Olympic Games. Against this backdrop, we analysed some notable examples of Olympic Villages as we questioned the relationship between their proposed “legacies” and their subsequent integration in the urban realities of their host cities. We conclude that most Olympic Villages have not fulfiled their legacy role as proposed by the IOC. This suggests that we need to further explore the relationship between the host region’s urban development and the Olympic Games so that the desired “Olympic legacy” may become part of the daily life of the host cities.