Informal housing,spatial structure,and city compactness

This paper develops a monocentric city model with a formal and an informal sector in the housing industry. While formal developers build houses renting land from landowners, informal developers use land for free. However, informal developers must incur defensive expenditures to avoid government intervention. In equilibrium, at any distance of the central business district (CBD), informal developers use land until the value of the marginal productivity of land equals the defensive expenditures per unit of land. The model shows the land allocated to produce short informal (tall formal) buildings increases (decreases) with distance to the CBD. Thus, the model introduces a new source of spatial variation of building height. The model also shows that a higher level of informal housing increases the spatial size of a city and reduces the height of its buildings.     

From Contention to Co‐governance: The Case of the Right to Inhabit Movement in Rome (2000–2013)

Based on interviews with activists and local government officials and on secondary data, this paper analyzes the development and effects of the Roman Right to Inhabit Movement (RIM) from its origins till 2014. The first section describes the origins and characteristics of the new housing question in Rome. The second presents a brief genealogy of the RIM, paying special attention to how it has framed the housing question. The third describes the activities of the RIM by focusing on its interplay with the city politics and administration and the resulting changes in the housing policy of the city of Rome. The fourth section analyzes the modes of state regulation and of political articulation of the housing question that these transformations have brought about. The final section argues that these emerging arrangements are a significant example of how new forms of social protection are being created by urban movements after the neoliberal erosion of the welfare mechanisms.     

The moral economy of home construction in late socialist Yugoslavia

Housing shortages in Yugoslav cities were a perennial concern for authorities and citizens alike. They disproportionately affected Yugoslav workers who as a consequence were the demographic most likely to independently construct a family home. This article explores how informal builders justified home construction in moral terms, legitimizing it on the basis of physical labour that was invested in home construction. This was couched in both the language register of Yugoslav socialism and patriarchal custom (according to which a male-headed household should enjoy the right to a family home). Construction was also conditioned by the opportunities and constraints of late socialist temporalities.     

New rent seeking strategies in housing in Spain after the bubble burst

This paper analyses the new rent seeking strategies in housing implemented during Spain’s financial crisis. The Spanish Model presents a paradigmatic case of the need for capital to reinvent itself through the articulation of new mechanisms for the production and appropriation of urban rent, as the crisis revealed the limits of strategies that were implemented during the bubble period. Amongst these new strategies, the paper analyses the rescue of financial entities, the creation of a ‘bad bank’ and the establishment of Spanish REITs. These mechanisms are leading to financialisation of rental housing and the emergence of vulture funds as new transnational owners of housing.     

城市住宅市场价格系统动力学模型实证研究

城市住宅市场价格影响因素复杂,必须用系统思想才能准确预测模拟其发展趋势。文章结合对兰州市住房市场的实证研究,从理论和实践两方面构建了城市住宅市场价格系统动力学仿真模型,并借助计算机利用系统动力学软件对模型进行了调试和分析,得到了比较令人满意的结果。认为,城市住宅价格系统动力学模型在以下三方面有较大的推广应用价值:①房地产市场趋势仿真模拟;②房地产政策研究和决策分析;③城市住宅市场系统内在机制研究。     

‘A place to rest’: the role of transitional housing in ending homelessness for women in Calgary,Canada

The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to determine the role of transitional housing in ending homelessness for women and (2) to explore how gender-specific experiences of homelessness may inform housing service delivery models. Using a participatory research methodology, photovoice, and focus group discussion, nine women with lived experience of homelessness were engaged over 10 weeks in a process of reflection and critical dialogue about their previous experiences in a YWCA transitional housing facility and their current YWCA permanent housing in Calgary, Canada. Through this process women revealed that the key aspects of transitional housing that helped them exit homelessness were the interplay of four important factors: safety, time, a community of women with similar experiences, and a supportive environment with access to appropriate services in which to recover from trauma. Although moving directly from homelessness to permanent housing may be appropriate for some women, findings from this study demonstrate that this may not be the case for all. Our results suggest that once permanently housed women, especially those with histories of trauma, struggle with the trade-off between the rules that kept them safe in transitional housing and living as independent, autonomous adults in the community.     

Homeless at Home in East Durham

Abstract: This paper contributes to research on homelessness and home, focusing on the experiences of young, working class women living in privately rented or social housing in the former coalfields of East Durham in north east England. Although the women had a place to live, they rarely felt “at home” because they lived in the most deprived areas of East Durham, or too far away from family and friends, or in substandard accommodation. The women were denied the “normative values of home” that should be, as Iris Marion Young (1997) argued, accessible to everyone. While most of the women were on a waiting list for social housing, home was experienced in the emotional space of imagining and hoping to move house while living with the frustration of not moving. They often felt homeless. The paper sets the young women's experiences of home(lessness) against a changing housing policy context.     

House prices and school choice: Evidence from Chicago's magnet schools’ proximity lottery

Studies of open school policies predict house prices to rise in areas that gain access to high-quality schools. However, excess demand may limit access to high-quality schools. We take advantage of changes in Chicago's schools’ admissions policies to test whether a higher probability of admission to magnet schools for students living within 1.5 miles leads to higher house prices. Results indicate that the 1997 and 2009 reforms increased house prices for homes within the 1.5 mile radius by about 4% and 12.6%, respectively. The higher probability of admission for black students after a consent decree was vacated in 2009 led to a significant increase in prices in predominantly African-American areas on the south side.     

国内外城市居民职住空间关系研究进展和展望

城市居民职住空间关系是指城市居民居住地和工作地之间的社会空间关系,是城市空间结构的重要研究内容。体制转型时期中国城市居民职住空间关系正在经历着翻天覆地的变化。本文主要从职住空间关系研究学派、职住空间平衡和城市通勤、居住选择和居住空间分异等方面对国内外相关研究进行述评,认为国内相关研究应注重社会调查,加强个体层面的研究,从体制转型和个体社会经济特征等角度寻求城市居民职住空间关系及其演化的形成机制,并注重特殊群体,如外来人口、城市贫困人口和原单位制社区居民等社会群体的职住空间关系和社会空间后果研究。