Housing
Land prices, rent and gentrification. Behind every plan lies the question that orders all the others: who gets to stay.
Housing is the urban problem most people suffer from and the one worst explained. The price of a flat is not decided by bricks: it is decided by land, and land is decided by a rule that says what can be built, where, and how high. When that rule changes, the price of everything on top of it changes too.
Here we gather the channel's analyses of who gets to stay in a city and who has to leave: rent and its rises, the gentrification of neighbourhoods that become fashionable, land speculation, the informal housing that grows where the formal kind never arrives, and the policies that have worked somewhere and those that only seemed to. Also the urban economy underneath — why cities concentrate jobs and prices — and the reverse case: cities that empty out.
A home is not expensive because it costs a lot to build.
It is expensive because somebody decided how much land could be used, who could buy it and who would be left out.
- Housing
Root shock: why losing your neighborhood feels like grief
Mindy Fullilove and Herbert Gans on the trauma of displacement: urban renewal scattered whole communities, and the…
7 min read - Housing
School apartheid: the street that decides where you study
Property taxes, exclusionary zoning and the Rodriguez ruling explain why one street decides which school, and which…
4 min read - Urban economy
Castells: From Collective Consumption to the Space of Flows
Manuel Castells's urban thought moved from collective consumption and urban social movements to the network society…
Manuel Castells 3 min read - Housing
Jason Corburn and Street Science: Planning with the Neighbourhood
Jason Corburn proposes in Street Science combining technical knowledge with neighbourhood knowledge to plan healthy…
Jason Corburn 3 min read - Housing
Mike Davis: Risk Is Not Natural but a Construct of Power
Mike Davis argued that urban disasters are built before the emergency through segregation, speculation and unequal…
Mike Davis 3 min read - Urban economy
Capitalist Accumulation in Space: David Harvey and the Urban Struggle
David Harvey explains why capital keeps remaking the city: spatial fix, uneven development and housing as an asset.
David Harvey 3 min read - Urban economy
Jane Jacobs: How Life on the Streets Builds Safe and Vibrant Cities
Jane Jacobs argued that mixed uses, small blocks, old buildings and density keep streets alive and safe through…
Jane Jacobs 3 min read - Housing
Natalie Jeremijenko: The City as a Participatory Ecology Lab
Natalie Jeremijenko's devices make pollution and urban biodiversity visible so citizens can investigate and act.…
Natalie Jeremijenko 3 min read - Urban economy
Who Wins When the City Becomes a Business: Molotch's Growth Machine
Harvey Molotch's growth machine explains who really wins when the city becomes a business: developers, politicians.…
3 min read - Shrinking cities
Who Deserves Space in the City? Peñalosa and the Fair Street
Enrique Peñalosa turned the distribution of urban space into a policy of equality: pavements, cycle paths,…
3 min read - Urban economy
Ananya Roy: The State Can Also Be Informal
Ananya Roy shows that urban informality is produced by the state as it tolerates, authorises or demolishes…
Ananya Roy 3 min read - Urban economy
AbdouMaliq Simone: People as the Infrastructure of the City
AbdouMaliq Simone shows that informal networks sustain urban life in the Global South: people as infrastructure,…
AbdouMaliq Simone 3 min read - Housing
The Rent Gap: How It Reveals When Gentrification Has Already Begun
Neil Smith's rent gap measures the difference between current and potential land rent and shows that gentrification…
3 min read - Urban economy
Why Some Cities Innovate and Others Do Not: Michael Storper
Michael Storper explains why some cities innovate and others do not: organisations, technologies and territories,…
Michael Storper 3 min read - Housing
Wacquant: Advanced Urban Marginality and Territorial Stigma
Loïc Wacquant explains how precarisation, social retreat and the penal state produce advanced urban marginality,…
3 min read - Housing
Sharon Zukin: How Culture Turns a Neighbourhood into a Product
Sharon Zukin explains how the symbolic economy raises a neighbourhood's value before prices rise: the sequence of…
Sharon Zukin 3 min read - Urban economy
Closed Shutters Close Businesses and Communities: The Ground Floor
Why a street full of homes can feel empty: Jacobs's eyes on the street, Klinenberg's Chicago heatwave, thousands of…
3 min read - Housing
What a Housing Bubble Is and Why It Is a Problem for the City
A housing bubble appears when price detaches from rents and wages and is sustained by credit and resale…
3 min read - Housing
The Real Cost of Living Away: More Than Rent
Cheap housing on the outskirts is paid in bus hours, fuel, care and lost opportunities: the H+T index, Carlos…
3 min read - Housing
Why People Buy Buildings to Leave Them Empty and Who Is to Blame
Emptying a tenanted block converts a wholesale valuation into retail profit: Savills figures, the Fidere, Patrizia…
4 min read - Urban economy
Who Benefits from Luxury Built with Public Funds?
How a luxury district is manufactured in four steps, rezoning, public investment, brand and phased sales, and who…
3 min read - Housing
Empty Homes and Price Crisis: How Does the Market React?
Why homes stay empty amid a housing crisis and how the market reacts to correction: the home as store of value,…
3 min read - Urban economy
Guggenheim Versus the Rest: Myths and Realities of Iconic Museums
Why the Guggenheim effect worked in Bilbao and failed when copied: the prior plan, Beatriz Plaza's data, the…
3 min read - Urban economy
The Heart Beats at the Last Mile: What Delivery Costs the City
How much city it takes for a parcel to arrive in two hours: sheds on the periphery, ghost supermarkets, more…
3 min read - Housing
How Airbnb Changes the City: Rising Rents and Vanishing Neighbours
Airbnb raises rents, replaces local shops and dissolves neighbourhood ties. What the studies show and how…
3 min read - Housing
Art Washing: Murals, Investment and Displacement in Cities
Art washing uses murals, galleries and festivals to prepare working-class neighbourhoods for investment.
3 min read - Urban economy
The House With a Yard That Is Quietly Bankrupting Your City
Dispersed detached housing gives municipalities fast revenue and leaves an unpayable maintenance debt: Charles…
3 min read - Housing
The Historic Centre as a Deceptive Façade: Tourism Without Neighbours
Historic centres restore their stones and lose their residents to short-term rentals and souvenir shops.
3 min read - Urban economy
Siliconized Cities: Who Is Running Your City Now?
How tech platforms became the operating system of the city: San Francisco's tech gentrification, Airbnb, dark…
3 min read - Housing
Chinese Urbanization: Land, Superblocks, Hukou and Ghost Cities
Chinese urbanization moved more than 900 million people into cities in four decades. How land sales, superblocks,…
3 min read - Urban economy
Neoliberalism from Below: Verónica Gago's Popular Economies
Verónica Gago's neoliberalism from below explains how popular economies, such as La Salada in Buenos Aires,…
2 min read - Housing
Di Virgilio: social housing and participatory urbanism
María Mercedes Di Virgilio on habitat, housing and the city in Latin America: precarious housing, social housing…
2 min read - Urban economy
Nik Theodore: Neoliberal Urbanism, Informal Work and Migrants
Nik Theodore explains how neoliberal urbanism produces precarity, what his studies of day labourers and migrants in…
Nik Theodore 2 min read - Urban economy
Rebel Cities by David Harvey: Right to the City and Urban Revolution
Rebel Cities (2012) by David Harvey explains that capitalism's crises have urban roots and that the right to the…
David Harvey 3 min read - Shrinking cities
China's Ghost Cities: Failure or Strategy According to Wade Shepard
Ghost Cities of China (2015) by Wade Shepard explains why China built empty districts, what became of Ordos or…
3 min read - Urban economy
Andy Merrifield: Critique of Neoliberalism and the Right to the City
Andy Merrifield describes the neoliberal city as parasitic and proposes replacing the right to the city with a…
Andy Merrifield 2 min read - Shrinking cities
Robert Beauregard: Urban Decline and Postindustrial Cities
Robert Beauregard explains in Voices of Decline how the decline of Detroit, Cleveland or St. Louis was at once fact…
Robert Beauregard 3 min read - Urban economy
Peter Marcuse: Social Justice and Urbanism Against Neoliberalism
Peter Marcuse explained how neoliberalism put planning at the service of capital and what a just city requires.…
Peter Marcuse 2 min read - Housing
Tom Slater: The Critique of Gentrification and Displacement
Tom Slater argues that gentrification is a policy, not a natural process, and that its real cost is displacement.
Tom Slater 2 min read - Urban economy
Jamie Peck: Constructions of Neoliberal Reason and the City
Jamie Peck's Constructions of Neoliberal Reason explains neoliberalism as a process that finds its laboratory in…
Jamie Peck 2 min read - Housing
Martha Rosler: art against gentrification
How Martha Rosler uses art to critique gentrification and urban capitalism: from If You Lived Here… to the city…
Martha Rosler 2 min read - Urban economy
Tania Murray Li: Development, Exclusion and the Will to Improve
Tania Murray Li explains why development programmes produce exclusion by rendering political problems technical.
Tania Murray Li 3 min read - Urban economy
Urban Change and Social Conflict: Roger Lee's Perspective
Urban change redistributes advantages and losses and therefore produces conflict. What the volume Urban Change and…
Roger Lee 3 min read - Urban economy
Critical Urbanism: What It Is and What Harvey and Brenner Propose
Critical urbanism analyses the city as a product of power and capital. What David Harvey and Neil Brenner…
2 min read - Housing
The Right to Housing According to Raquel Rolnik
The right to housing is in treaties and constitutions, but policies hollow it out. What Raquel Rolnik defended as…
Raquel Rolnik 3 min read - Urban economy
Land Policy: Power, Value Capture and Spatial Justice
Land policy decides who gains from urban growth. What it is, how Edward Soja links it to spatial justice and which…
2 min read - Housing
Sonia Hirt and Zoning: The Roots of Urban Inequality in the USA
Zoned in the USA (2014) by Sonia Hirt shows that the exclusive single-family zone, unique in the world, raises…
3 min read - Housing
Loretta Lees: Urban Regeneration as State-Led Gentrification
Loretta Lees shows that urban regeneration demolishes public housing and scatters communities in the name of social…
Loretta Lees 3 min read - Shrinking cities
Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff
Charlie LeDuff narrates in Detroit: An American Autopsy the collapse of the Motor City: relocation, white flight,…
3 min read - Urban economy
City of Quartz by Mike Davis: The Inequality That Made Los Angeles
City of Quartz (1990) by Mike Davis excavates the power that built Los Angeles: developers, homeowners, police and…
Mike Davis 3 min read - Urban economy
Urban Fortunes by Logan and Molotch: The City as a Growth Machine
Urban Fortunes (1987) by John Logan and Harvey Molotch explains who rules cities: the coalition that gains from…
3 min read - Urban economy
Critical Urban Studies by Davies and Imbroscio: Social Justice
Critical Urban Studies (2010), edited by Jonathan Davies and David Imbroscio, revisits urban studies from social…
2 min read - Urban economy
David Harvey: the right to the city under neoliberalism
David Harvey explains how neoliberalism turned housing into a commodity, and why the right to the city means…
David Harvey 3 min read - Urban economy
Michael Storper: The Regional World and regional development
What Michael Storper argues in The Regional World: why regions still matter in a global economy, regional worlds of…
Michael Storper 2 min read - Housing
Loïc Wacquant: why the ghetto is not an accident
Wacquant compares American ghettos with French banlieues and shows that advanced marginality is not residual but…
2 min read - Housing
Naked City by Sharon Zukin: Gentrification and Urban Authenticity
Naked City (2010) by Sharon Zukin shows how the search for authenticity gentrifies New York's neighbourhoods.
Sharon Zukin 2 min read - Urban economy
Poverty Capital by Ananya Roy: The Critique of Microfinance
Poverty Capital (2010) by Ananya Roy shows how microfinance turned poverty into a market. From Grameen to…
Ananya Roy 2 min read - Housing
Neil Smith and Gentrification: Rent Gap and the Revanchist City
Neil Smith explained why gentrification happens: the rent gap that draws capital and the revanchist city that…
Neil Smith 2 min read - Housing
Alfredo Rodríguez: Santiago, Social Housing and Los con Techo
Alfredo Rodríguez documented how Chilean housing policy produced ghettos on Santiago's periphery.
Alfredo Rodríguez 3 min read - Housing
Loretta Lees: Gentrification, Super-Gentrification and Displacement
Loretta Lees widened gentrification with super-gentrification, new-build and planetary gentrification.
Loretta Lees 2 min read - Urban economy
The Spectacle City: Consumption and Exclusion per Debord and Zukin
The spectacle city is built to be seen: events, icons and showcases that exclude residents. What Guy Debord and…
3 min read - Urban economy
Sharon Zukin: Cultural Capital and Urban Transformation
A city's cultural capital draws investment and tourism, but it also gentrifies. What Sharon Zukin explains in The…
Sharon Zukin 2 min read - Shrinking cities
Deindustrialization and Urban Reuse: Lofts, Rent Gap and Culture
Reusing industrial land turns factories and docks into housing, culture and parks. What Sharon Zukin and Neil Smith…
2 min read - Housing
Anna Minton: Ground Control and the Privatisation of Public Space
Anna Minton exposed in Ground Control and Big Capital the privatisation of public space, security by design and…
Anna Minton 3 min read - Shrinking cities
Postindustrial Cities: How They Reinvent Themselves and Who Wins
Postindustrial cities replaced factories with services, culture and technology. What David Harvey, John Friedmann…
2 min read - Urban economy
Richard Florida and the Creative Class: What the Evidence Says
How Richard Florida measures the creative class with the three Ts and his indices, how it became fast policy and…
Richard Florida 3 min read - Shrinking cities
Post-Industrial Regeneration: Guggenheim Effect, Culture and Exclusion
Post-industrial regeneration bet on culture and tourism after the factories, from Bilbao to Glasgow.
3 min read - Housing
Cohousing and Coliving: What They Are, Differences and City Examples
Cohousing is collaborative housing run by its residents; coliving is a serviced rental product. Origins with…
3 min read - Urban economy
Touristification: Zukin, Sassen and the city for tourists
What touristification is and how Sharon Zukin (Naked City) and Saskia Sassen explain it: authenticity turned into a…
2 min read - Urban economy
Urban Logistics: Distributing Goods Without Choking the City
Urban logistics manages the movement of goods in the city: loading zones and time windows according to Browne, data…
2 min read - Housing
Housing Challenges in Cities: Rolnik, Marcuse and Madden
Why housing is ever less accessible in contemporary cities: financialisation according to Rolnik, Marcuse's just…
3 min read - Housing
Urban Warfare by Raquel Rolnik: Housing Under Financial Capital
Urban Warfare by Raquel Rolnik explains how housing went from a right to a financial asset and produced evictions…
Raquel Rolnik 2 min read - Housing
Planet of Slums by Mike Davis: The Global Urban Crisis Explained
Planet of Slums (2006) by Mike Davis explains why more than a billion people live in informal settlements and which…
Mike Davis 3 min read - Housing
Gentrification and Displacement: Smith, Lees and Slater
Gentrification raises neighbourhood values and displacement pushes residents out. What Neil Smith, Loretta Lees and…
3 min read - Urban economy
Triumph of the City by Edward Glaeser: Why Density Matters
Triumph of the City (2011) by Edward Glaeser argues that the dense city makes us richer, greener and healthier.
Edward Glaeser 3 min read - Housing
Real Estate Speculation and Housing Bubbles: Aalbers, Harvey, Martin
Real estate speculation turns housing into a financial asset and fuels bubbles. What Manuel Aalbers, David Harvey…
2 min read - Urban economy
Richard Florida's The New Urban Crisis: Inequality in Cities
The New Urban Crisis (2017) by Richard Florida explains why the most prosperous cities push out the people who…
Richard Florida 2 min read - Urban economy
Creative Economy: Innovation or Inequality? Scott and Pratt
The creative economy drives urban innovation and distributes inequality. What Richard Florida, Allen J.
3 min read - Urban economy
Deborah Cowen: Global Logistics, Power and Urban Transformation
Deborah Cowen shows in The Deadly Life of Logistics that global logistics was born in war and now governs ports,…
Deborah Cowen 3 min read - Housing
Affordable Housing: Policies That Work According to Marcuse and Rolnik
Affordable housing depends on public decisions, not the market. What Peter Marcuse and Raquel Rolnik propose and…
3 min read - Urban economy
Feminization of Urban Poverty: Causes and Policy Responses
The feminization of urban poverty explains why women bear more of the burden of poverty in cities.
2 min read - Housing
Ruth Glass and Gentrification: London, Aspects of Change
Ruth Glass coined gentrification in 1964 to describe middle-class newcomers displacing Islington's working class.…
Ruth Glass 2 min read - Urban economy
Ann Markusen: Creative Economy, Artists and Urban Development
Ann Markusen measured what artists contribute to the urban economy, defined creative placemaking and criticised…
Ann Markusen 3 min read - Housing
Social Housing and Rent Regulation: What Works and Why
Social housing and rent regulation are the keys to urban affordability. What Raquel Rolnik and Peter Marcuse…
3 min read - Shrinking cities
Reusing Abandoned Spaces: Opportunities and Risks
Reusing abandoned factories, stations and lots preserves heritage and central land, but it can gentrify.
3 min read - Urban economy
Informal Economy and Informal Settlements in the Global South
Two billion people work in the informal economy and a billion live in informal settlements. What AbdouMaliq Simone…
3 min read - Housing
Raquel Rolnik: The Right to Housing Against Financialization
Raquel Rolnik, UN Rapporteur on housing from 2008 to 2014, explains in Urban Warfare how housing went from a right…
Raquel Rolnik 3 min read - Urban economy
Innovation and Urban Development: Porter, Florida and Markusen
Innovation as the engine of urban development according to Michael Porter, Richard Florida and Ann Markusen:…
3 min read - Urban economy
Platform Economy and Urban Work: Precarity and Regulation
The platform economy turned couriers and drivers into self-employed workers managed by algorithms. What Nick…
3 min read - Urban economy
Creative Urbanism: From Landry and Florida to Their Critics
Creative urbanism uses culture and art to regenerate cities. What Charles Landry and Richard Florida propose, what…
3 min read - Urban economy
How Capitalism Shapes Cities: David M. Gordon and Harvey
How capitalism shapes cities according to urban political economy: David M. Gordon's three phases, Harvey's…
2 min read - Urban economy
Urban Food Security: The Role of Women in Poor Neighbourhoods
Food security in poor neighbourhoods depends on women's invisible work. What Caroline Moser shows, what food…
3 min read - Urban economy
Urban inequality and social justice: four fronts
Urban inequality and social justice explained on four fronts: gentrification, urban poverty, equitable access to…
2 min read - Housing
The Impact of Airbnb on Neighbourhoods: Rents and Everyday Life
How short-term rental raises rents, replaces local shops with souvenir stores and breaks neighbourhood life, and…
3 min read - Housing
Liquid city: the megalopolis that never stops
Gottmann, John Rennie Short and Harvey: why the Boston-Washington corridor behaves like a river of concrete, and…
1 min read
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