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11. The Rise and Fall of Social Housing? Housing Decommodification in Long-Run Perspective

Author:
K.A. Kholodilin, Sebastian Kohl, and F. Mueller
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
The comparative study of housing decommodification lags behind classical welfare state research, while housing research itself is rich in homeownership studies but lacks comparative accounts of private and social rentals due to missing comparative data. Building on existing works and various primary sources, this study presents a new collection of up to forty-eight countries’ social housing shares in stock and new construction since the first housing laws around 1900. The interpolated benchmark time series generally describe the rise and fall of social housing across a residual, a socialist, and a Northern-European housing group. The decline was steeper than for the classical welfare state, but the degree of erosion was surprisingly small in some countries where public housing associations remained resilient. Within the broader housing welfare state, social housing correlates positively with rent regulation and allowances, but negatively with homeownership subsidies and liberal mortgage regulation. A multivariate analysis shows that social housing is rather explained by housing shortages and complementarities with rental and welfare policies than by typical welfare state theories (GDP, political parties). Generally, the paper shows that conventional housing typologies are difficult to defend over time and argues more generally for including housing decommodification in welfare state research.
Topic:
Welfare, Public Health, Housing, and Social Order
Political Geography:
Global Focus

12. Environmental Justice in the Age of Unnatural Disaster

Author:
Chris N. Lesser
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
The North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA)
Abstract:
The recent mudslides in Petrópolis are just the latest examples of the issues of unequal access to land and precarious housing in Brazil.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, Natural Disasters, Inequality, Justice, Land, and Housing
Political Geography:
Brazil and South America

13. Access to Housing: A Right Not an Investment

Author:
Nizar Aouad
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Over the past two years, the housing situation in Lebanon has deteriorated so drastically that it has been nearly impossible for many population groups to secure adequate and sustainable housing options, given the sharp increase in rental prices, weak tenure rights, and rising socio-economic inequalities. This policy brief looks into the housing situation in Lebanon and its impact on members of the LGBTQIA+ community. It highlights that the LGBTQIA+ community is among the most affected by Lebanon’s housing crisis due to their historic exclusion by the government and society; the lack of protective policies affecting access to housing rights and alienating LGBTQIA+ individuals and their needs; arbitrary eviction threats, discrimination based on physical appearance, and physical and emotional violence; and no recourse to justice in cases of violations due to state-sponsored violence against queer bodies. The paper makes recommendations on how the Government of Lebanon, donors and the international community, and civil society organizations can help ensure that members of the LGBTQIA+ community are able to live without fear of violence and exercise their right to housing in an equitable way.
Topic:
Governance, Discrimination, Violence, LGBT+, and Housing
Political Geography:
Middle East and Lebanon

14. The Missing Link: Understanding Rental Housing for Urban Poor

Author:
Anindita Mukherjee, Shubhagato Dasgupta, Abhinav Kumar, Aastha Jain, and Isha Khurana
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
More than 30 million urban households in India, including urban poor, depend on the rental housing market for their housing needs, out of which around 70 per cent rely on informal rental arrangements. According to the NSSO 76th round (2017-18), 19 million households, 64 per cent of the total rental housing stock, belong to the economically weaker section. This reaffirms the important role of rental housing in providing housing for urban poor, albeit still remains understudied. This study contributes to the emerging discourse on state of rental housing for urban poor while highlighting the emerging policy direction from the analysis therein. Drawing from primary data from a household survey of 1800 urban poor households that included landlord and tenants across Bhubaneswar, Coimbatore, and Cochin across slum or non-slum low income neighborhoods; the findings reveal poorer housing condition in slums than those living in non-slum areas. It also shows that the households providing rental services to urban poor are also urban poor and they continue to rely on informal rental practices. This further perpetuates the deficient access to basic civic infrastructure both for the renter and rent provider, further marginalizing the renter. These findings suggest that there is an imminent need to recognize urban poor households as a critical supplier of rental housing stock for the urban poor and to develop comprehensive approaches for incentivizing them to improve the quality of living in renting arrangements. It further highlights the need to involve communities to create quasi legal structures for easier and faster dispute resolution, preferably outside the formal legal structure – cost of compliance to the Model Tenancy Act (MTA) may end up exacerbating poverty among the renters. The report further highlights the importance of policy and planning measures including earmarking land for affordable rental housing near and around high growth areas, servicing areas where poor urban tenants live, among others. As the fast-urbanising countries debate over the best ways to provide affordable housing at scale in the global south, providing affordable rental housing near places with economic opportunities is emerging as most crucial for fulfilling the vision of ‘Housing for All’. Affordable rent structure, universal access to safe water, sanitation, and connectivity through public transport have the potential to improve the living conditions and quality of life of urban poor enhancing their economic contribution in city making.
Topic:
Poverty, Urban, Housing, and Rent
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

15. Does Station Name Matter?: Rent Seeking Behavior and Its Impact on Housing Prices

Author:
Hwiwon Seo and Minsik Choi
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), University of Massachusetts Amherst
Abstract:
The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of rent-seeking behavior for public goods on housing prices. To do so, we analyzed the case of renaming the Sinchoeon station to Jamsilsaenae station for the Seoul Metro Green line by applying the rent seeking theory and estimated the effect of the event on the housing prices of the affected neighborhood. The hedonic pricing model adopted by related studies does not produce unbiased estimates due to the endogeneity resulted from omitted variables including compounding macroeconomic variables. By developing a new dataset, we used the difference in differences regression method that produces more precise and unbiased estimates. Our results show that the housing prices affected by the renaming event increased by around 5% compared to those of non-affected neighborhood. Our analytical results can shed light on understanding related rent seeking behaviors for public goods provision.
Topic:
Economy, Macroeconomics, Housing, and Rent-seeking
Political Geography:
Asia and Korea

16. Social Mobilization and Structural Racism in Colombia

Author:
David Murillo Mosquera
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation (CIC)
Abstract:
David Murillo Mosquera used the 2021 protests in Colombia to illustrate the role social movements play, and to call for a national dialogue alongside policies such as fast-tracking land titling to provide the Afro-Colombian community with secure housing and assets.
Topic:
Social Movement, Ethnicity, Solidarity, Housing, and Racism
Political Geography:
Colombia and South America

17. Social Housing 2.0

Author:
Gianpaolo Baiocchi and H. Jacob Carlson
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation (CIC)
Abstract:
The global housing crisis shows few signs of letting up. This report from Gianpaolo Baiocchi (Director of the Urban Democracy Lab, Professor of Individualized Studies and Sociology at NYU) and H. Jacob Carlson (postdoctoral research associate at S4 at Brown University) argues that the solutions can be found in "social housing." This report makes the case that social housing is desirable, viable, and achievable. The intractability of the global housing crisis requires new thinking and action, even if it draws on lessons that are quite old. As housing costs continue to skyrocket, policymakers and social movements have an opportunity to set their communities on a new path—one that guarantees a fundamental right to housing.
Topic:
Inequality, Crisis Management, and Housing
Political Geography:
Global Focus

18. The Rise and Fall of Social Housing? Housing Decommodification in Long-Run Perspective

Author:
Konstantin A. Kholodilin, Sebastian Kohl, and Sarah Hellmüller
Publication Date:
08-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Sciences Po Center on Coping with Instability in Market Societies (MaxPo)
Abstract:
The comparative study of housing decommodification lags behind classical welfare state research, while housing research itself is rich in homeownership studies but lacks comparative accounts of private and social rentals due to missing comparative data. Building on existing works and various primary sources, this study presents a new collection of up to forty-eight countries’ social housing shares in stock and new construction since the first housing laws around 1900. The interpolated benchmark time series generally describe the rise and fall of social housing across a residual, a socialist, and a Northern-European housing group. The decline was steeper than for the classical welfare state, but the degree of erosion was surprisingly small in some countries where public housing associations remained resilient. Within the broader housing welfare state, social housing correlates positively with rent regulation and allowances, but negatively with homeownership subsidies and liberal mortgage regulation. A multivariate analysis shows that social housing is rather explained by housing shortages and complementarities with rental and welfare policies than by typical welfare state theories (GDP, political parties). Generally, the paper shows that conventional housing typologies are difficult to defend over time and argues more generally for including housing decommodification in welfare state research.
Topic:
Public Policy, Housing, and Welfare State
Political Geography:
Europe and Global Focus

19. Neighborhood Defenders: Participatory Politics and America’s Housing Crisis, Katherine Levine Einstein, David M. Glick and Maxwell Palmer

Author:
Mark Paul
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
America is in the midst of a housing crisis. For millions of Americans, stable housing is simply out of reach. A full-time worker earning minimum wage cannot afford a two-bedroom apartment in any county in the United States. Twenty-one million households, nearly half of all renters, are rent-burdened, with rent claiming more than a quarter of their income. There are a number of contributing factors to the crisis, including pervasive economic inequality and the lack of rising wages over an entire generation for nonmanagerial workers, but many economists, political scientists, and housing experts point the finger at a lack of housing supply. Specifically, much ink has been spilled over the “not in my back yard” (NIMBY) phenomenon, whereby local residents support more housing in theory, just not in their own neighborhoods. But do local residents really have the power necessary to slow new and denser development in ways that curtail housing supply and contribute to rising house prices? In their timely and important book, Katherine Levine Einstein, David M. Glick, and Maxwell Palmer provide an excellent analysis of the political institutions that empower certain local residents to resist change in their neighborhoods. While the NIMBY sentiment is worthy of consideration regarding the housing crisis, without the right institutions, the movement would not have legs. Neighborhood Defenders provides an in-depth study of how institutions initially designed to democratize local zoning and development decisions have resulted in unintended consequences. Specifically, they document how participatory institutions that could, in theory, keep developers accountable to the people have instead backfired, leading to a shortage of housing supply and a precipitous rise in prices.
Topic:
Book Review, Political Science, Crisis Management, and Housing
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

20. The Role of Global Climate Change in Structural Transformation of Sub-Saharan Africa

Author:
Askar Mukashov and Christian Henning
Publication Date:
06-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)
Abstract:
With increasing evidence that rural households in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) opt for deagrarianization as an adaptation strategy to climate change, it is becoming important to understand the role of Global Climate Change (GCC) in ongoing structural transformation processes in these countries. We use Senegal as a case study country and analyze how various GCC scenarios affect the country's economic sectors, households' welfare, and structural transformation patterns. Our simulation results suggest that GCC can increase the country's deagrarianization pace, with industrial and service sectors in the capital Dakar being the most important destinations of the former agricultural labor force. Although unplanned urbanization smoothes the overall negative impact of GCC and decreases spatial income disparities, uncontrolled deagrarianization is also associated with negative externalities. Previous growth-focused studies suggest that services partaking in Senegal’s deagrarianization can hamper its long-term growth prospects, and our results suggest that productivity increase of services can redirect part of the former agricultural labor force towards industrial sectors.
Topic:
Agriculture, Climate Change, Economics, Environment, Labor Issues, Income Inequality, Rural, and Housing
Political Geography:
Africa and Senegal