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Housing Finance in the Aftermath of the Foreign-Currency Mortgage Crisis in Eastern Europe

Different Debtors, Different Struggles: Foreign-Currency Housing Loans and Class Tensions in Romania

Different Debtors, Different Struggles: Foreign-Currency Housing Loans and Class Tensions in Romania

Management of foreign-currency household debt in Romania in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis in 2008 had the effect of deepening pre-2008 class disparities and treated debtor categories differently according to their income. In this article we contribute to the debate on subaltern financialisation by showing how post-crisis credit and housing policies contributed to the fact that today different debtor groups (i.e. by type of credit but also by time of lending) find themselves at opposing ends of the political spectrum based on different class alliances, with those who benefited from the crisis-management polices positioning themselves against those who were the ‘losers’ under these same policies.

22.6.2022 | Ioana Florea, Mihail Dumitriu | Volume: 9 | Issue: 1 | Pages: 68-77 | 10.13060/23362839.2022.9.1.542
Short-Term Rentals and the Housing Market

Conditions for the Introduction of Regulation for Short-Term Rentals

Conditions for the Introduction of Regulation for Short-Term Rentals

Most cities in major agglomerations in Europe started to address the rise of short-term accommodation rentals by introducing regulation designed to protect the local housing stock. The momentum behind the widespread introduction of such regulations can be attributed to qualitative and quantitative factors. This article examines selected fields related to short-term rentals in order to uncover the (structural) triggers or conditions that are necessary and sufficient for municipalities to initiate the regulation of their housing market. The study is based on the systematic examination of the effects of those triggers and their combinations using qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). With this method, we explore the implementation or non-implementation of regulation on a sample of major German cities. The results suggest a universal set of conditions covering three central fields: housing market situation, accommodation market conditions and tourism accommodation demand.

18.6.2021 | Vilim Brezina, Jan Polívka, Martin Stark | Volume: 8 | Issue: 1 | Pages: 159-170 | 10.13060/23362839.2021.8.1.532
Varieties of Housing Regime Approaches

Classifying Housing Regimes. Is it Worth Doing? What are the Alternatives?

Classifying Housing Regimes. Is it Worth Doing? What are the Alternatives?

Comparative housing research is hindered by attempts to provide broad empirical categorisations of types of Housing Regimes and their equivalents and sweeping cross-country generalisations about their effects. Regime theory is right to recognise the housing provision is and can be organised in different ways but proselytises too strongly. Real issues and policy debates in countries are instead embedded in the existence of specific, tenure related, networks of housing provision and they widely differ across the world. Taking that on board can lead to more fruitful understandings.

4.6.2020 | Michael Ball | Volume: 7 | Issue: 1 | Pages: 36-48 | 10.13060/23362839.2020.7.1.502

Informality and Affordability: Approaches from the Global South and Opportunities for the Global North

Informality and Affordability: Approaches from the Global South and Opportunities for the Global North

The changing world economy since the 1970s and the decrease in welfare and deregulation in the Global North have led to an inefficient and declining stock of affordable housing. In the Global South, the need to economically catch up with the Global North has led to a lack of sustainable affordable housing policies. Social and affordable housing policies in the Global South have been either non-existent or very inefficient. The aim of this short paper is to start a discussion (and contribute to the existing ones) on how the social dynamics of informal settlements may be a source of new approaches to the provision of affordable housing in the Global North and South. Despite their illegal status and characterisation as urban blight, informal settlements are frequently illustrative examples of collaborative processes in the areas of planning and development that depend on the social connections and relationships among squatter households.

18.12.2019 | Aysegul Can | Volume: 6 | Issue: 2 | Pages: 1-12 | 10.13060/23362839.2019.6.2.476

‘Not for Housing’ Housing: Widening the Scope of Housing Studies

‘Not for Housing’ Housing: Widening the Scope of Housing Studies

Historically, the main focus of the study of housing in advanced economies has been on houses that meet the accommodation needs of households: houses as the main residence of families. In recent decades there has been the growth in the numbers of houses used for purposes other than as a main residence, for example in the forms of the recent global spread of Airbnb and of foreign engagement in housing as an investment tool. Specifically, the advance of disruptive, financialized technologies in various sectors has meant that alongside a set of ‘for housing’ houses (FHH) another, overlapping, set of ‘not for housing’ houses (NFHH) is emerging. The present paper begins by identifying four types of NFHH, and considers the significance of their growth. It argues that while the NFHH sector is relatively small it has large impacts, and these are such that they challenge housing researchers and policy makers to develop additional ways of looking at housing systems.

19.2.2019 | John Doling, Richard Ronald | Volume: 6 | Issue: 1 | Pages: 22-31 | 10.13060/23362839.2019.6.1.450
Social Housing after the GFC: New Trends across Europe

Crisis? What Crisis? Social Renting in Flanders (Belgium) beyond the Financial Crisis

Crisis? What Crisis? Social Renting in Flanders (Belgium) beyond the Financial Crisis

In this paper we look at the position of social renting in Flanders after the GFC. It is argued that the GFC has hardly affected the production levels of social rental dwellings. On the contrary levels remain higher than before the GFC. Starting from that, we briefly illustrate what the current debates in social rental housing are.

25.6.2017 | Pascal De Decker, Jana Verstraete, Isabelle Pannecoucke | Volume: 4 | Issue: 1 | Pages: 40-51 | 10.13060/23362839.2017.4.1.323
Special issue on Nature-Home-Housing: Greening and Commoning of Urban Space

“Green” Utopia of the Uralmash: Institutional Effects and Symbolic Meaning

“Green” Utopia of the Uralmash: Institutional Effects and Symbolic Meaning

The article examines ideological and institutional role of the “greening” policy in the Soviet urban planning practice of 1920-1930s. Relying on the example of the socialist city of Uralmash in Yekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk) the author traces how the idea of the “green city” affected the development of the urban settlement in terms of its functional mechanism and symbolic transformation. By analyzing the logic of the Uralmash “green” policy and its main narratives he argues that successful improvement of the post-Soviet green zones depends not so much on the new urban city-planning initiatives as on the new symbols and meanings that could give a clear vision of these spaces in the current social and cultural context.

25.12.2016 | Mikhail Ilchenko | Volume: 3 | Issue: 2 | Pages: 52-60 | 10.13060/23362839.2016.3.2.298

Positive (?) Social Consequences of Gating

Positive (?) Social Consequences of Gating

The social consequence of gating have been generally characterized as negative, particularly in regards to raising issues of social injustice such as the privatization of space, estrangement, and segregation. Some authors have found positive social consequences of gating particularly in regard to reducing the scale of segregation and promoting social interdependency as a form of social integration as well as encouraging neighbourhood cohesion and maintaining social capital. The following is a critical review of the positive consequences of gating within the overall trend of commodification of community in new residential developments.

30.6.2015 | Karim Youssef | Volume: 2 | Issue: 1 | Pages: 1-10 | 10.13060/23362839.2014.2.3.151

Subjective or objective? What matters?

Subjective or objective? What matters?

The aim of the paper is to discuss selected methodological problems of quantitative comparative housing research. The analysis is based on EU-SILC data and the concept of overcrowding is considered. We used two alternative definitions of overcrowding rate, both based on normative assumptions and each giving slightly different results. We tried to answer the question, which definition is better. The basic idea was that the closer the ‘objective’ rate of overcrowding is to its ‘subjective’ assessment, the better the selected method (definition) is. Moreover, it was shown that while in more advanced countries the share of households that consider dwelling space to be a problem is significantly higher than the share of households living in overcrowded dwellings based on ‘objective’ criteria, in post-socialist countries the opposite is true.

26.1.2014 | Petr Sunega | Volume: 1 | Issue: 1 | Pages: 35-43 | 10.13060/23362839.2014.1.1.28