Periodic Reporting for period 1 - O2A (From ownership to access: digital and policy tools for building post-homeownership futures)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2021-08-16 do 2023-08-15
Growing numbers of people are renting rather than owning commodities such as music, films, cars and, crucially, housing. The shift from ownership to access in exchange for a fee is occurring in the context of new socio-economic conditions and digital platforms emerging from crisis-ridden landscapes. Homeownership, the social cement of capitalism in past decades and a central element of the “social contract” in many liberal democratic regimes, is receding. This entails that new profiles of renters and rentiers are gaining centrality in contemporary urban political economies. Novel forms of income generation have developed, but also novel forms of precarity and inequality.
The project engages with these changing urban conditions and analyses emerging strategies to counter associated power and wealth imbalances. To this end, the project involves an intensive analysis of Barcelona, an ‘extreme case’ in two respects; (1) in the significance of the shift from ownership to access economies in housing, and (2) in how related asset-ownership inequalities, as well as asymmetries in the control of data and digital infrastructures, are being addressed in innovative ways. The project outlines the wider digital and property landscapes in which Barcelona is embedded and analyses the development of digital counter-infrastructures and legal and policy innovations that are drafting new ‘social contracts’ for a post-homeownership scenario.
The research carried out sheds light on a period of expansion and dispersion of property ownership followed by one of contraction and concentration after the global financial crisis of 2008. A young “generation rent” excluded from property ownership has emerged in parallel to an older “generation landlord”, which expanded its patrimony by acquiring devalued properties in the crisis’ wake. Concomitantly, institutional investors, notably foreign pension funds, have also taken a stake in residential real estate. Asset management firms and digital platforms have become key intermediators of these processes. Altogether, a landscape of polarisation around property and rent has emerged from the ruins of the 2008 mortgage crash.
The resulting social conflictivity between tenants and landlords has produced new social movements and organisations that have been pushing for legal and policy changes in the rental housing sector, including novel rent controls and measures of housing rationing. These changes have been strongly contested in the public debate, yet the arguments employed against pro-tenant measures are plagued with empirical and theoretical weaknesses. Tenant and municipalist organisations have also started to build their own digital infrastructures to improve their operational capacities and reduce information asymmetries in the realm of housing. These digital infrastructures operate in conditions of structural inequality in relation to private power, yet have become important tools in the urban conflicts underway.
The project engages with these changing urban conditions and analyses emerging strategies to counter associated power and wealth imbalances. To this end, the project involves an intensive analysis of Barcelona, an ‘extreme case’ in two respects; (1) in the significance of the shift from ownership to access economies in housing, and (2) in how related asset-ownership inequalities, as well as asymmetries in the control of data and digital infrastructures, are being addressed in innovative ways. The project outlines the wider digital and property landscapes in which Barcelona is embedded and analyses the development of digital counter-infrastructures and legal and policy innovations that are drafting new ‘social contracts’ for a post-homeownership scenario.
The research carried out sheds light on a period of expansion and dispersion of property ownership followed by one of contraction and concentration after the global financial crisis of 2008. A young “generation rent” excluded from property ownership has emerged in parallel to an older “generation landlord”, which expanded its patrimony by acquiring devalued properties in the crisis’ wake. Concomitantly, institutional investors, notably foreign pension funds, have also taken a stake in residential real estate. Asset management firms and digital platforms have become key intermediators of these processes. Altogether, a landscape of polarisation around property and rent has emerged from the ruins of the 2008 mortgage crash.
The resulting social conflictivity between tenants and landlords has produced new social movements and organisations that have been pushing for legal and policy changes in the rental housing sector, including novel rent controls and measures of housing rationing. These changes have been strongly contested in the public debate, yet the arguments employed against pro-tenant measures are plagued with empirical and theoretical weaknesses. Tenant and municipalist organisations have also started to build their own digital infrastructures to improve their operational capacities and reduce information asymmetries in the realm of housing. These digital infrastructures operate in conditions of structural inequality in relation to private power, yet have become important tools in the urban conflicts underway.
The project has employed a mixed-methods approach and engaged in participatory research-action with local tenant movements. In order to construct a comprehensive picture of the property ownership landscape in Spain, Catalonia and Barcelona, data from numerous databases has been gathered and analysed.
Against this backdrop, the struggles for change in the private rental sector have faced strong political resistance. Through a critical discourse analysis of the positions of governments, opposition parties and landlord organisations, three main arguments employed to limit and/or contest pro-tenant measures are identified. They are labelled as: “the vulnerable landlord”, “the counterproductive effects” and “the violation of property rights” and are empirically and theoretically problematised.
The digital dimension to housing property relations is explored through an analysis of digital tools and infrastructures constructed by public authorities, non-profit organisations and tenant movements. Interviews with key participants and participant observation in tenant movement digital initiatives was carried out in Barcelona. A metropolitan housing observatory, a citizen collaboration tool to identify illegal tourist flats and digital mapping tools and databases run by tenant activists embody the idea of the digital counter infrastructure as a new strategic axis of intervention against the private appropriation of the city. In the framework of a collaboration with the Critical Mapping in Municipalist Movement’s project through the secondment organisation ODESC, the researcher participated in producing the MapHab website and mapping tools, which systematise data on eviction resistance produced by tenant groups and contribute to improving transparency and accountability in the housing sector.
Project results have been presented in academic conferences and will appear in forthcoming academic articles and book chapters. Dissemination through non-academic outlets has included a report published with the think tank La Hidra on the property structures of the Spanish rental market, a CIDOB think tank paper, the presentation of the Maphab website to activists and practitioners, press and magazine articles and the project own’s website.
Against this backdrop, the struggles for change in the private rental sector have faced strong political resistance. Through a critical discourse analysis of the positions of governments, opposition parties and landlord organisations, three main arguments employed to limit and/or contest pro-tenant measures are identified. They are labelled as: “the vulnerable landlord”, “the counterproductive effects” and “the violation of property rights” and are empirically and theoretically problematised.
The digital dimension to housing property relations is explored through an analysis of digital tools and infrastructures constructed by public authorities, non-profit organisations and tenant movements. Interviews with key participants and participant observation in tenant movement digital initiatives was carried out in Barcelona. A metropolitan housing observatory, a citizen collaboration tool to identify illegal tourist flats and digital mapping tools and databases run by tenant activists embody the idea of the digital counter infrastructure as a new strategic axis of intervention against the private appropriation of the city. In the framework of a collaboration with the Critical Mapping in Municipalist Movement’s project through the secondment organisation ODESC, the researcher participated in producing the MapHab website and mapping tools, which systematise data on eviction resistance produced by tenant groups and contribute to improving transparency and accountability in the housing sector.
Project results have been presented in academic conferences and will appear in forthcoming academic articles and book chapters. Dissemination through non-academic outlets has included a report published with the think tank La Hidra on the property structures of the Spanish rental market, a CIDOB think tank paper, the presentation of the Maphab website to activists and practitioners, press and magazine articles and the project own’s website.
The project has provided new data on the property structures in the Spanish housing sector in the first two decades of the 21st century and framed it within a rigorous account of their underlying political economy dynamics. Beyond the Spanish case study, this analysis is also relevant to other (post-)homeownership societies undergoing similar political and socio-economic processes. This research contributes to key debates in the literature regarding the relations between neoliberalism, the “asset economy” and processes of class formation.
This empirical work, together with the characterisation of the main arguments contesting pro-tenant measures, also contributes to clarifying the terms of the debate on rental housing reform as it circulates in local and global policy and academic circles.
Research on pension fund investments in Spanish real estate, in turn, contributes to the literature on the links between housing and welfare regimes. The literature has addressed the notion of a “trade-off” between home-ownership and welfare state generosity, particularly public pensions. The project has identified a new trade-off emerging between housing and pensions due to the recent evolution of funded pension systems, specifically between tenant’s and pensioner’s welfare. This insight is the result of abandoning the predominant methodological nationalism in the literature.
Finally, the concept of the “digital counter-infrastructure” is put forward, characterised and proposed as a strategic urban resource for the digital age. Drawing from examples in Barcelona, insights are provided on the potential and limits of these tools to change power relations in the housing sector.
Overall, both the empirical material, as well as the critical theoretical and analytical proposals regarding property relations and legal frameworks in the Spanish housing sector, can prove potentially useful for local policy-makers, practitioners and civil society actors, as well as for regional and global policy circles engaging in similar issues. The critical mapping and online mapping tool produced, moreover, serves as a tool for tenant unions and housing groups in Catalonia to systematise data and visualise their activity.
This empirical work, together with the characterisation of the main arguments contesting pro-tenant measures, also contributes to clarifying the terms of the debate on rental housing reform as it circulates in local and global policy and academic circles.
Research on pension fund investments in Spanish real estate, in turn, contributes to the literature on the links between housing and welfare regimes. The literature has addressed the notion of a “trade-off” between home-ownership and welfare state generosity, particularly public pensions. The project has identified a new trade-off emerging between housing and pensions due to the recent evolution of funded pension systems, specifically between tenant’s and pensioner’s welfare. This insight is the result of abandoning the predominant methodological nationalism in the literature.
Finally, the concept of the “digital counter-infrastructure” is put forward, characterised and proposed as a strategic urban resource for the digital age. Drawing from examples in Barcelona, insights are provided on the potential and limits of these tools to change power relations in the housing sector.
Overall, both the empirical material, as well as the critical theoretical and analytical proposals regarding property relations and legal frameworks in the Spanish housing sector, can prove potentially useful for local policy-makers, practitioners and civil society actors, as well as for regional and global policy circles engaging in similar issues. The critical mapping and online mapping tool produced, moreover, serves as a tool for tenant unions and housing groups in Catalonia to systematise data and visualise their activity.