From Occupying Plazas to Recuperating Housing: Insurgent Practices in Spain

Urban insurgencies have spread across the globe like wildfire in recent years. The indignado plaza occupations in Spain are often cited as beacons of popular and widespread dissent. This article argues that urban insurgencies with the highest emancipatory potential in Spain today are found in the practices of the housing rights movement—the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH, or Platform for Mortgage‐affected People)—that mainly entail blocking evictions and occupying empty bank‐owned housing. I elaborate on the notion of insurgent practice by examining how insurgency has been considered in relationship to citizenship, planning and public space. I propose insurgent practice as a way of articulating how people attempt to enact equality in everyday life and engage explicitly with socio‐spatial and political questions related to an emancipatory democratic politics. Based on a detailed analysis of two of the PAH's insurgent housing practices, I posit that recuperating empty bank‐owned housing with and for evicted families has the highest and most significant emancipatory potential, as it disrupts the core dynamics of urban capital accumulation and enacts equality for evicted households by directly contesting financial rent‐extraction mechanisms at multiple levels. In closing, I outline some conclusions that emerge from the Spanish housing case and from the concept of insurgent practice and urban politicizing practice in general.     

Moving up the Ladder or Stuck on the Bottom Rung? Homeownership as a Solution to Poverty in Urban South Africa

In the global South, policies providing property titles to low-income households are increasingly implemented as a solution to poverty. Integrating poor households into the capitalist economy using state-subsidized homeownership is intended to provide poor people with an asset that can be used in a productive manner. In this article the South African "housing subsidy system" is assessed using quantitative and qualitative data from in-depth research in a state-subsidized housing settlement in the city of Cape Town. The findings show that while state-subsidized property ownership provides long-term shelter and tenure security to low-income households, houses have mixed value as a financial asset. Although state-subsidized houses in South Africa are a financially tradable asset, transaction values are too low for low-income vendors to reach the next rung on the housing ladder, the township market. Furthermore, low-income homeowners are reticent to use their (typically primary) asset as collateral security for credit, and thus property ownership is not providing the financial returns that titling theories assume.     

Accessibility of financial services and household consumption in China: Evidence from micro data

Access to finance has embraced by policymakers as an important tool for promoting inclusive development and achieving long-run financial security, while most studies provide macro-perspective evidence. Fewer yet, have taken into the additional role that digital finance may be playing. In this paper, we combine access to formal finance and digital finance into one framework. Based on the 2015 China Household Finance Survey data, we measure access to financial services from a microscopic perspective and construct a digital finance indicator. We then present evidence that both access to formal finance and digital finance significantly promote households’ consumption, and these effects are much larger for rural households and poorer households in China. Our finding also lend support to the conjecture that digital finance is more beneficial for inclusive development.     

Financialization,Urban Governance and the Planning System: Utilizing ‘Development Viability’ as a Policy Narrative for the Liberalization of Ireland's Post‐Crash Planning System

Drawing upon the Irish case, this article explores the interaction between the financialized economy and the urban planning system. While considerable scholarship has examined the financialization of real estate, it remains unclear how planning systems are being repurposed to facilitate a finance‐led regime of urban growth or how the ‘real estate–financial complex’ seeks to enact planning policy transformations that support its interests. This article explores how such actors have advanced the concept of ‘financial viability of development’ as a means of influencing the post‐crisis re‐regulation of Irish planning policy. This group has argued that housing construction in post‐crash Ireland is unviable given the high development finance costs, onerous planning gain contributions and the lack of development certainty in the planning process. As such, housing construction has been at an all‐time‐low, leading to a new crisis in affordable housing provision. In response, a complicit state has further liberalized the planning system, introducing an array of policies that are evermore facilitative of development interests. Empirical findings, based on interviews with developers, lobbyists and planners, emphasize the importance of informal access to policymakers, the wielding of ‘expert knowledge’ and media management to co‐opt the state into adopting financial viability within planning policymaking.     

Self-reinforcing effects between housing prices and credit

The financial crisis has brought the interaction between housing prices and household borrowing into the limelight of the economic policy debate. This paper examines the nexus of housing prices and credit in Norway within a structural vector equilibrium correction model (SVECM) over the period 1986q2–2008q4. The results establish a two way interaction in the long-run, so that higher housing prices lead to a credit expansion, which in turn puts an upward pressure on prices. Interest rates influence housing prices indirectly through the credit channel. Furthermore, households’ expectations about the future development of their own income as well as in the Norwegian economy have a significant impact on housing price growth. Dynamic simulations show how shocks are propagated and amplified. When we augment the model to include the supply side of the housing market, these effects are dampened.     

THE DESIGN OF DIRECT DEMAND SUBSIDY PROGRAMS FOR HOUSING IN LATIN AMERICA

Traditional Latin American housing programs, which have used below-market interest rates to convey subsidies, have suffered from serious vices: high per-unit cost and subsidies, low population coverage, lack of transparency, benefits to the middle-class rather than the poor, and inefficiency. Chile broke out of this flawed traditional mode by launching a housing program that conveys subsidies directly to households in die form of a one-time, non-reimbursable grant This approach has spread to other Latin American countries, increasingly with the support of donors. The paper describes and then analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of direct subsidy programs in Chile, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Uruguay to distill ten design lessons: target to low-income households and ensure political autonomy; replace below-market interest rates with direct demand subsidies; use group mechanisms for low-income households; stimulate supply, not just demand; adjust key amounts for inflation; balance progressivity and financial feasibility; join die efforts of various levels of government; use NGOs; establish mechanisms for on-going consolidation of housing solutions; and include measures to promote broader housing sector reform. The conclusion applies these lessons to the design of a housing pilot project in Venezuela.     

The Financialization of Housing Production in Brussels

This article focuses on the financialization of housing production in the Brussels‐Capital Region, examining the increased presence and use of financial capital in housing production. Information collected by local administrations when granting building permits is used to undertake a large‐scale examination of companies involved in housing provision in Brussels in the 2000s in order to identify the origins of capital invested in housing development projects and to assess to what extent it can be considered as ‘financialized’. The use of this data set allows me to estimate the ‘market share’ of financial capital in housing production and to analyse the geography of these investments in the built environment. This spatial analysis also provides some insights for a discussion about the possible social consequences of this influx of financial capital into the urban space. The task of empirically ‘measuring’ financialization raises numerous methodological questions. A choice has to be made between a wide range of definitions, both for financial activities and the financialization process. Moreover, for the purpose of quantifying the phenomenon, these concepts are made operational and turned into indicators. In addition to providing information about the investment of financial capital in housing production and the concrete forms it may take in a city such as Brussels, I venture to suggest that this article also contributes to the methodological ‘toolbox’ available to researchers in the field of financialization.     

How Did Finance Capital Infiltrate the World of the Urban Poor? Homeownership and Social Fragmentation in a Spanish Neighborhood

When working‐class localities in developed countries are in question, social fragmentation is often analyzed along ethnic lines. Instead, this article claims that it is more critically fruitful to explore fragmentation in terms of people's relations with the state and different forms of capital. It does this by considering housing in Spain as a key resource that connects state policies both with the forms of reproduction and (dis)organization of the disadvantaged, and with the development of real estate and finance capital. First, it unfolds the historical formation of the Spanish ‘homeownership culture’ and the construction–finance complex. Second, starting from an in‐depth ethnography of a peripheral neighborhood in Barcelona, it emphasizes the embeddedness of recent financialization in the livelihood strategies of poor households. Finally, it shows how the process led to a commodification and erosion of those social relations on which it partially depended, thereby exposing problems for class reproduction and fracture lines among the urban poor.     

What happens to household formation in a recession?

While many studies have investigated the determinants of housing demand, very few studies have focused on how economic conditions affect the formation of potential households directly. Potential households may choose to delay entry into the housing market by remaining with one’s parents during times of economic hardship or by combining with other persons to share housing costs. Using a variety of modeling approaches, we find that both the increase in the unemployment rate and the presence of recessions reduce the rate of household formation. Simulations suggest that these declines are substantively important. For example, in a recession, the likelihood that a young adult will form an independent household falls by 1–9% points depending on the age of the person. By way of comparison, if an individual is unemployed, the likelihood of leaving the parental home is up to 11% points lower.     

我国住房保障政策公平性的缺失

研究了我国住房保障政策的公平性问题.认为目前实施的住房保障政策存在政策覆盖面公平性缺失、政策目标对象偏离和扩大贫富差距等问题.在此基础上,从政策设计、住房建设、资格审核和住房管理等方面对公平性问题的产生原因进行了深入探讨,并提出了保障公平的政策建议.     

My Home Was My Castle: Evictions and Repossessions in Britain

Using data for 1991 to 1997 from the British Household Panel Survey we investigate the incidence of housing finance problems, evictions, and repossessions. Previous research on repossessions and problematical housing debt in Britain has focused on cross-sectional data. This paper contributes uniquely to the literature by examining the sequence of household and individual events associated with housing arrears and evictions. Our results show that the previous experience of financial problems has a significant and positive association with the current financial situation and the probability of eviction and that negative financial surprises are an important route into financial difficulties controlling for other changes such as divorce or loss of employment. Families with higher income and where the head or his or her spouse is in work have a lower risk of experiencing problems meeting their housing costs.     

HOUSING POLICY IN DEVELOPING ECONOMIES: Evaluating the Macroeconomic Impacts*

This paper presents a view of the role of the housing sector in developing countries which emphasizes the potentially high macroeconomic costs of inappropriate housing policies. Traditional public finance perspectives on the role of the housing sector in the economy focus on efficiency and equity implications of the rather modest levels of government spending in the sector. This paper points out that this traditional approach is misleading in that it is less government's spending in the sector than its role in defining regulatory frameworks, pricing policies, and policies affecting the financial sector that comprise the major instruments for influencing the performance of the housing sector and, in turn, the way its performance affects the macroeconomy. The paper also presents a simplified framework for analyzing how housing policies influence the housing sector and the macroeconomy. Simple applications of the framework suggest that the macroeconomic implications of housing policy choices can be of major importance. This is emphasized by two case studies, of policies in Argentina and Poland, where recent housing policies appear to have had major impacts on levels of investment, price and wage levels, and savings rates.     

小额信贷与农民工居住问题的缓解

综述了小额信贷的研究与实践,描述了目前城市农民工住房的特点以及存在的问题,认为应借鉴小额信贷在国内外的发展模式,扶助解决农民工住房问题。通过对比不同行业就业条件下的农民工的工作、生活方式和居住条件,经过合理假设,设计出一个扶助解决城市农民工就业地居住问题的实验性住房小额信贷模式,并就模式的可行性、经济效益以及社会效益等方面进行了分析和展望。     

Demolishing the Present to Sell off the Future? The Emergence of ‘Financialized Municipal Entrepreneurialism’ in London

This article introduces a new mode of urban entrepreneurialism in London through a study of the state‐executed, speculative development and financialization of public land. In response to an intensifying housing crisis and austerity‐imposed fiscal constraints, municipalities in London are devising entrepreneurial solutions to deliver more housing. Among these ‘solutions’ can be found the early signs of the state‐executed financialization of public housing in the UK with the use of speculative council‐owned special purpose vehicles (SPVs) that replace existing public housing stock with mixed‐tenure developments, creating ambiguous public/private tenancies that function as homes and the basis for liquid financial assets. Drawing together parallel literatures on the financialization of urban governance and housing, and combining these with original empirical research, we situate these developments in contrast to earlier modes of governance, identifying a distinct mode of entrepreneurial governance in London: financialized municipal entrepreneurialism. The local state is no longer merely the enabler—limited to providing strategic oversight of the private sector—but financializes its practice in a reimagined commercialized interventionism, as property speculator. This article concludes that while the architects of this new mode of entrepreneurialism extol the increased capacity and control it provides, any such gains must be set against longer‐term financial, democratic and political risks.     

Formalization by the State,Re‐Informalization by the People: A Gecekondu Transformation Housing Estate as Site of Multiple Discrepancies

This article demonstrates residents' transformative practices and discusses attendant outcomes to contribute to an understanding of state‐built housing estates for people affected by urban transformation projects. It draws upon ethnographic fieldwork conducted in a social housing estate (K‐TOKI) in the Northern Ankara Entrance Urban Transformation Project (NAEUTP). It addresses questions on why formalization of informal housing takes place today, under what conditions it is countered by re‐informalization practices, and what the outcomes of this process are. As informal housing became formalized by NAEUTP, gecekondu dwellers were forced into formalized spaces and lives within K‐TOKI, which was based on a middle‐class lifestyle in its design and its legally required central management. Informality re‐emerged in K‐TOKI when the state's housing institution, in response to the estate's poor marketability, moved out, allowing residents to reappropriate spaces to meet their needs and form their own management system. When cultural norms that are inscribed in the built environment and financial norms that treat residents as clients conflict with everyday practices and financial capabilities, the urban poor increasingly engage in acts of informality. I argue that the outcome of this informality in a formal context is a site of multiple discrepancies.     

HOUSING INFORMALITY IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH: Insights from a Policy Comparison between Accra and Buenos Aires

Informal settlement growth in various countries has led to distinctive actions that enhance low-income populations’ accessibility to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services. This trend indicates the need for comparative studies between countries and cities to understand the factors that lead to policy learning opportunities. We conducted an experimental comparison between Accra, Ghana, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, to understand, first, how policies on informal settlements have been formed, and secondly, what inquiries should be made to address housing informality in the global South. A comparison shows that these cities/countries have shared moments of neoliberalization and that their poor residents have experienced similar struggles regarding housing availability and the pursuit of extensive governmental interventions. Therefore, their experiences are worth examining. Our comparison indicates that first, Buenos Aires/Argentina has adopted more inclusive policies regarding informal dwellers than Accra/Ghana, and secondly, that diversifying housing solutions are an inevitable dynamic in cities/countries experiencing a surge in housing pressure across classes, races and geographies. In this article we articulate how the governments of these countries have dealt with these challenges and conceptualize the coproduction needs of housing informality in developing countries. We encourage policymakers facing informality in the South to respond to the questions we raise about facilitating policy learning.     

A micro view on home equity withdrawal and its determinants: Evidence from Dutch households

For most households, home ownership is the largest wealth component that has become more accessible through innovation and deregulation in mortgage markets. This paper studies the factors driving home equity withdrawal (HEW) at the household level using Dutch survey data. In the Netherlands, house prices were growing fast and mortgage expenses are to a large extent tax deductible. Expectations and perceptions do seem to play an important role in HEW. Withdrawers tend to be more positive about house price developments and – although having lower income – less concerned about their future economic situation. HEW can have a significant impact on both households and the economy, with most of the equity released being reinvested in the housing sector and only a small share used to finance consumption expenditure.     

Wealth spurt unlikely to offer much aid to the consumer

• ? UK households are wealthier than ever, thanks to continued growth in house prices and a buoyant stock market. However, the nature and distribution of that wealth means that support for consumer spending from a ‘wealth effect’ is likely to be both small and less than in the past.
• ? In Q4 2016, households' holdings of owner‐occupied property and net holdings of financial assets amounted to £9.2tr, almost 8% up on the level a year earlier. This was equivalent to 719% of annual household gross disposable income, a near‐record high.
• ? A long‐established feature of economics is the concept of a ‘wealth effect’ – the premise that faced with rising wealth levels, households feel more comfortable and economically secure and hence spend more. But the economic literature differs on how large this effect is.
• ? Our own Global Model suggests that the wealth effect is modest, with a 10% rise in wealth boosting consumer spending by only around 0.2%. One reason is that about half of financial wealth consists of highly illiquid assets in pension funds. But this component has recently been the biggest source of growth in wealth.
• ? Given differences in the propensity to consume out of income and wealth, the concentration of financial and housing assets among better‐off households will also act to neuter the size of any wealth effect. The wealthiest one percent of households hold around 20% of household wealth. But the bottom quartile owns only 1.5%.
• ? Meanwhile, the housing market has created an ever‐greater concentration of wealth. The share of households owning their own property fell from 71% to 63% in the decade to 2015. But the share of private renters more than doubled in the same period, from 9% to just over 19%. And the pre‐crisis appetite to finance consumption by borrowing against the value of property shows no sign of returning.

     

Late Neoliberalism: The Financialization of Homeownership and Housing Rights

Over the last few decades we have witnessed a global U‐turn in prevailing housing and urban policy agendas, spread around the world by the driving forces of globalization and neoliberalism. The new paradigm was mainly based on the withdrawal of states from the housing sector and the implementation of policies designed to create stronger and larger market‐based housing finance models. The commodification of housing, together with the increased use of housing as an investment asset within a globalized financial market, has profoundly affected the enjoyment of the right to adequate housing. Taking the World Bank's 1993 manifesto as a starting point and the subprime crisis as its first great international flashpoint, this essay traces some key elements of the neoliberal approach to housing and its impact on the enjoyment of the right to housing in different contexts and times. The reform of housing policy — with all its components of homeownership, private property and binding financial commitments — has been central to the political and ideological strategies through which the dominance of neoliberalism is maintained. Conversely, the crisis (and its origins in the housing market) reflects the inability of market mechanisms to provide adequate and affordable housing for all.