The US Housing Crisis

Home and Trust in the Real Estate Economy

verfasst von: Judith Keller

Verlag: Springer Nature Switzerland

Buchreihe : The Urban Book Series

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

This book aims to draw careful distinctions between the various forms of housing insecurity and personal circumstances research participants experience. While the urgency of the housing crisis in the US has produced a lot of scholarly work on housing, it often fails to recount the real life struggles that the housing crisis is causing. This is where the book provides a distinct contribution to housing studies and urban geography. The author use of trust as an analytical lens, her qualitative approach, and her work with people on the ground aim to move away from a quantitative understanding of the crisis by giving it a human face. The author seeks to bring to light the human costs of the destruction of home as well as the political reactions and day-to-day strategies that residents apply to make ends meet in times of the US housing crisis.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Chapter 1. Introduction

Abstract

This chapter begins by introducing the fate of two women who are housing insecure. Along those two personal stories, the main fault lines of the housing crisis are illustrated. People struggle with high cost burdens and inadequate housing conditions; they experience displacements and evictions, all while the real estate economy is booming. This discrepancy is then supported by facts and figures on the US housing market which illustrate the multifaceted character of the US housing crisis and subsequent housing insecurity. Building on this, the theoretical and methodological background is laid out. After a short literature review of geographical housing research, trust is introduced as an innovative approach to studying home and housing, allowing researchers to focus on the lived dimension of the housing crisis and to flesh out the human costs of housing insecurity. Finally, this chapter details the main goals of the book and outlines how the various chapters help support the main arguments and answer the research questions.

Judith Keller

Chapter 2. Trust as a Spatial Concept for Urban Studies

Abstract

This chapter introduces trust theory to urban studies. It is argued that shifts in trust relations and the loss of trust that US society has witnessed in the past decades can be seen and felt in our cityscapes. As a relational species dependent on social interaction, our urban societies are essentially built on trust, allowing people to interact with strangers and unfamiliar environments. Thus far, however, trust has been mostly overlooked in urban studies, and there is no conceptual approach that supports this urban dimension of trust. It is thus the central goal of this chapter to introduce a spatial dimension to the study of trust. First, this chapter argues that trust is dependent on spatial contexts and atmospheres, and, when applied to urban studies, needs to be researched in its spatial context, the field. Second, spatial familiarity is presented as a positive driver of trust that is of particular relevance in the context of people’s homes and neighborhoods. Third, trust as a relational entity unfolds in relation to its social and physical environment, meaning that trust relations shape urban development, as the discussion of trust in the context of the US housing crisis is going to show.

Judith Keller

Chapter 3. Home and Housing as Spatialized Trust

Abstract

This chapter aims to bring the study of trust and scholarship on home into conversation. After the philosophies on space and place had been misused to make nationalistic claims to territory in the first half of the twentieth century, home only became a topic of interest again after the spatial turn in the social sciences and humanities. Since then, there have been many studies on home in geography, building on a variety of approaches, ranging from the study of atmospheres in phenomenology over specific home-making practices to uncovering the patriarchal and heteronormative structures within the home. In a critical examination of home, the aim is to establish home as a complex and often ambivalent concept. After outlining the phenomenological tradition based on Heidegger, the practice-oriented tradition, and the feminist critique of home, this chapter concludes with a reinterpretation of home as a trust relationship. This last section will not only highlight the relational understanding of home but also make the case that a profound understanding of home as a space of trust is necessary to understand the impact of the housing crisis on individuals, communities, and urban societies.

Judith Keller

Chapter 4. A Brief History of Housing in the USA

Abstract

This chapter provides the historical and political background on the US housing crisis. It focuses on housing development throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries, the historical period of time that is most important to understand current developments on the residential market. First, the focus is on housing policies before the 1970s, which were mostly born out of the New Deal legislation. Then, this chapter illustrates the shift toward more market-liberal housing policies following on the Nixon presidency, cutting funds for welfare programs while relaxing rules for mortgage lending. These developments were reinforced in the 1990s, as the third section details, culminating in a housing bubble in the mid-2000s and a financial recession which many are still recovering from. The final section of this chapter links these national and global developments to the three case study cities. Here Atlanta, New Orleans, and Washington, DC, are introduced as some of the most gentrifying cities in the US. While they follow different local logics, they all experience rapid redevelopment and subsequent displacement, leading to stark disparities in the housing market.

Judith Keller

Chapter 5. The Disruption of Trust and Trust Networks: Tracing Residents’ Struggles in the Housing Market

Abstract

This chapter focuses on three common stressors in the housing market: affordability, adequacy, and displacement. They represent disruptions in the housing market that undermine people’s experience of home and consequently their trust relations in and around the home. As housing becomes increasingly unaffordable, residents fear that they will not be able to keep pace with rising rents and housing costs. At the same time, the quality of housing is poor, and those who can no longer afford to live in the newly built and well-maintained apartments in the city center are bound to inadequate and grossly substandard housing. Most prevalently, however, this is felt in communities that battle with displacement. Many people fear displacements—or have already experienced displacement—either moving because of growing financial pressure or because they were asked to leave, formally evicted, or foreclosed on. The loss of home equals the loss of a familiar, trusted environment as much as it is the loss of a trust network of friends and neighbors. This chapter focuses on residents’ experiences, highlighting that home is not only about physical residence but also about the trust networks that have developed around it.

Judith Keller

Chapter 6. The Pervasiveness of Distrust in the Housing Market: Analyzing Interactions Between Residents and Housing Institutions

Abstract

This chapter aims to expand on the experience of people on the ground by focusing on the trust/distrust relationships between residents and institutions that work on housing provision. Due to the many struggles people are facing in today’s housing market, trust relationships are not only at stake in and around the home but especially in regard to trusting those institutions that are often seen as the originators of the crisis: banks, developers, real estate firms, as well as municipal and federal housing departments. The first section of this chapter discusses market mechanisms, mostly the supply side argument, around which cities build their housing policies. The second section then focuses on the state as an actor in the housing market. While the state is caught up in most developments one way or another, this section looks at state-funded housing, in particular public housing and voucher programs, using Barry Farm in Washington, DC, as an example. The third section then discusses the role of nonprofit developers, often deemed a wholesome alternative compared to predacious real estate developers and unreliable state programs. The case of Make It Right in New Orleans will serve as an example here.

Judith Keller

Chapter 7. People Power, Tenant Power!—Rebuilding Trust Through Housing Rights Movements and Activism

Abstract

This chapter looks at social movements as a space of trust-building. It is argued that joining housing rights movements, which more and more people feel inspired to in times of crisis, is a way to rebuild that trust that has been lost. The network of trust that is rebuilt here functions as living infrastructure to give people stability where homes and communities are threatened. The first section discusses how people’s experiences in the housing market translate into their activism. The data show that people’s housing biographies influence their political biographies. The distrust that is experienced due to the housing crisis functions as a catalyst for housing activism. The second section then analyzes the trust networks within social movements more closely. The main focus is on the experience of in-group trust within activist networks, which works both as a gate keeping mechanism and as a means to build alliances between those at the margins of the housing market. The final section centers on the right to housing as the ultimate goal. It asks what role activism can play in establishing access to affordable and adequate housing as a de facto right and what strategies activists use to promote housing justice.

Judith Keller

Chapter 8. Home, Trust, and the Right to the City: Concluding Remarks

Abstract

The final chapter weaves together the various threads that pervade this book: trust, home, housing insecurity, and activism. Home as a space of trust does not lose its significance in the face of the housing crisis; rather, its potential and significance are underlined. The analysis reveals not only the pitfalls of the current housing system and the hardships of people on the ground, but also the strong sense of belonging people continue to feel and home’s potential for current activism around the housing question. This chapter thus aims to strike a hopeful chord, showing that while the home has become unsettled, it remains a central building block of urban society. Things are thus more complicated than to simply attest a loss of home and trust in times of the US housing crisis. Rather, the final chapter highlights the ambivalence of home and trust. When analyzing people’s housing biographies, home is simultaneously about trust and distrust, about belonging and displacement, about rootedness and venturing into the future. Having extrapolated the significance of home, this chapter then concludes in a call for a universal right to housing as part and parcel of the right to the city.

Judith Keller

Backmatter

Titel: The US Housing Crisis
verfasst von: Judith Keller
Verlag: Springer Nature Switzerland
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-031-57758-1
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-57757-4
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-57758-1