(Re)politicising Housing | Seminar series "Where is Urban Politics?"

In recent years, housing policy has reemerged as a major domain of contestation in cities  across Europe. In this seminar we bring together speakers from economics, philosophy and  spatial planning to share and exchange on the (re)politicisation of urban housing, to consider  and critically evaluate the ways in which housing policies and regulatory decisions contribute  to or undermine forms of spatial and socio-economic justice.  

Schedule - Wednesday 13 November 2024

13.45 walk-in 

14.00 keynote: The financialisation of housing: drivers, outcomes and options for reform  Josh Ryan Collins (UCL, UK) - including response by Dirk Bezemer & questions 

15.00 coffee break 

15.15 Housing allocation, clustering and spatial justice - Elisabetta Gobbo (EUR) 

16.00 Urban Interventions: property development, spatial planning, and the just  city - Christian Lamker and Sara Özogul (RUG) 

16.45 closing discussion 

17.00 drinks 

Venue

Learning Landscape, University College Groningen, University of Groningen Hoendiepskade 23/24 

*Joining online is also possible

Seminar information

14.00 Keynote by Josh Ryan Collins (UCL, UK)

The financialisation of housing: drivers, outcomes and options for reform

Housing has two economic functions. It is a consumption good – it provides shelter – but also a financial asset. This lecture will argue that housing affordability and wealth inequality crises facing high income economies have their roots in long-term shifts in financial-,macroeconomic- as well as housing policy that have driven up the demand for housing as a financial asset. Supply-side policy reforms, which still dominate policy agendas, will not be sufficient to ameliorate the housing crisis if they are not supported reforms to these policy areas and the wider role of the housing market in the economy. In particular, effort should be focused on breaking the powerful feedback-cycle between debt- and wealth-driven financial flows and house prices and reducing the potential for rent extraction from home ownership.

15.15: Housing allocation, clustering and spatial justice

Elisabetta Gobbo (Erasmus Institute of Philosophy and Economics, Erasmus University

Rotterdam)

Housing allocation (i.e., the mechanisms that determine who gets which housing and where) influences important aspects of socio-spatial arrangements in the city, particularly residential clustering/segregation and gentrification. A theory of spatial justice, I assume, should be able to explain when and why such relevant socio-spatial arrangements are wrong. In this paper, I focus on the literature on residential segregation (Young, 1990; Anderson, 2008; Shelby, 2016; Sundstrom, 2024). I contend that, in the literature, authors tend to conflate the notions of voluntary residential clustering, mandated segregation, and marginalization, and thus are unable to properly identify the conditions under which clustering is wrong and why (besides the obviously unjust case of mandated racial and class segregation).

I propose using a relational-egalitarian framework to analyze what, if anything, is wrong with residential clustering, focusing on the concept of spatial marginalization. In doing so, I offer a novel way to understand the disagreements in the debate, propose using the concept of spatial marginalization to guide the discourse on spatial justice, and, hopefully, suggest some interesting considerations that should underpin de-segregation policies.

16.00: Urban Interventions: property development, spatial planning, and the Just City

Christian Lamker and Sara Özogul (Faculty of Spatial Sciences, University of Groningen)

Housing markets, developments, and spatial planning are deeply interconnected and central to building just, sustainable cities. The ongoing focus on housing crises has led governments across the spectrum to set ambitious targets for addressing shortages and affordability. Yet, despite expanded regulations, these goals are rarely achieved. This contribution explores two decades of housing market and planning regulations in the Netherlands, arguing that a fragmented regulatory structure—marked by conflicting and often non-binding policies—complicates housing objectives, resulting in inconsistent interventions and limited progress toward cohesive urban strategies for just cities. Understandings relations towards the just city and sustainability ambitions is a crucial step towards finding potential answers and enabling strategic urban interventions.