Cody Hochstenbach

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14036096.2020.1846610
The private rental sector (PRS) is making a surprising comeback. A central argument in our paper is that we see the rise of PRS and the associated stagnation of homeownership as springing from the contradictions inherent to financialized homeowner societies. Rather than a feature of either mature or late homeowner societies, contradictions of the promotion of homeownership through the expansion of mortgage markets paved the way for a revival of the PRS. Our case is the Netherlands, but our argument has a wider remit. We sketch the dominant trends in Dutch housing policy and present an overview of the rise of PRS and Buy-To-Let in Dutch cities. We identify how housing policies and realities have driven a shift from a debt-driven to a wealth-driven model of financialization, in which the demand for PRS as an investment class and as a place to live has become central. Ultimately, the revival of private landlordism may amount to property wealth concentration, deepening social divides.

Mounting concerns exist that small private investors exacerbate the urban housing crisis, by purchasing dwellings to rent out – so-called “buy-to-let” purchases. By buying up property, they may drive up house prices and exclude regular house-seekers. In this paper, we show that buy-to-let purchases constitute an increasing share of all purchases on the Dutch housing market, and especially so in larger cities and university cities. We argue these local trends do not emerge out of thin air and are not a ‘natural’ market process but should be considered the product of both global economic developments and national policies supporting these changes. Global developments include the increased mobility and ample availability of capital, exemplified by a prolonged low interest environment and a growing scarcity of high quality collateral and investment opportunities, making housing attractive for storing capital. Dutch housing policies have increasingly restricted access to social rent to low-income groups, while blowing up house prices fuelled with mortgage debts. As a consequence, a growing number of households falls in-between these two tenures: they have to resort to private rent. Private investors respond to and accommodate this demand through buy-to-let investments. Furthermore, the Dutch national government has made steps to relax regulation on the private-rental market and weakened tenant rights. In so doing, it sets the scene for amplifying social and spatial inequalities between the property rich and the property poor.

Parkstad Limburg, located in the south of the Netherlands, represents a former industrial area facing structural shrinkage and economic decline in a relatively strongly regulated environment. Though regional policies were initially slow to fully recognize the reality of shrinkage, they are currently well under way. This article identifies to what extent housing policies aim to go beyond managing shrinkage and instead address housing needs of current residents to create equitable social outcomes. We subsequently investigate how specific housing interventions have impacted the region’s changing class composition, using individual-level longitudinal register data from Statistics Netherlands. Our findings highlight increasing socioeconomic and sociospatial inequalities in the wake of shrinkage. Policies have a mixed influence on these dynamics, dampening certain inequalities but amplifying others. Our analyses underscore the limited effectiveness of policies in combating housing mismatch even in a strongly regulated market and indicate key trade-offs for regional governments in managing shrinkage.

The Dutch government introduced the Act on Extraordinary Measures for Urban Problems in 2006 to bolster local regeneration efforts. The act enables local governments to stop specific groups of deprived households from moving into designated neighbourhoods. More specifically, the Act allows local governments to refuse a residence permit to persons who have lived in the metropolitan region for less than six years and who do not receive an income from work, pensions or student loans. The policy is based on the idea that reducing the influx of poor newcomers improves liveability by providing a temporary relief of the demand for public services and by making neighbourhoods demographically 'balanced' or 'socially mixed'. This review examines the socio-spatial effects of the Act in Rotterdam between 2006 and 2013. While the Act produces socio-demographic changes, the state of the living environment in designated areas seems to be worsening rather than improving. Our findings show that the policy restricts the rights of excluded groups without demonstrably improving safety or liveability. The review concludes with a reflection on how the Act may signify a broader change in European statecraft and urban policy.

Major post-industrial cities across Europe and other contexts are marked by growing social-spatial inequalities, with housing liberalization and gentrification limiting low-income households’ housing options. We investigate changes in the residential moves of different low-income households (working poor, low-to-middle incomes, and unemployed). These moves represent the nexus where issues of displacement, exclusion and housing affordability come to the fore. This paper focuses on Amsterdam and Rotterdam and the 2004-2013 time period with the 2008 global financial crisis as a key turning point. It finds relatively crisis-resistant trends of gentrification in the tight Amsterdam housing context and an accelerating suburbanization of poverty during the post-crisis bust. In contrast, in Rotterdam cyclical trends are more dominant with gentrification slowing down post crisis. However, the suburbanization of poverty is multifaceted and differs between low-income groups. In both cities, a growing group of working-poor households remains highly urbanized, predominantly moving to the urban periphery and employing coping strategies to find housing. Low-to-middle incomes and unemployed households increasingly move to the surrounding urban regions, particularly to higher-density satellite towns. Thus, this paper highlights the diverse nature of gentrification and the suburbanization of poverty, between and within cities.

The so-called Rotterdam Act enables municipal governments in the Netherlands to bar poor households with no or limited residential history in the metropolitan area from moving into certain neighborhoods. Although evidently at odds with principles of equality enshrined in law, the Act has emerged as a standard part of the policy tool kit. This article seeks to explain how the Rotterdam Act came to pass. Asking this question sets us on the path of reconstructing how specific urban areas suffering from extraordinary problems were identified and how using exceptional measures to exclude specific groups were instituted. In a word, we are interested in the construction of exceptionality. We show that the construction of exceptional territories is based on the interplay of discretionary power and statistical calculation. We discuss the wider relevance of our analysis to the emerging field of critical data studies and for understanding the links between sovereignty, territory and statistics in constitutional democracies.

Parental support, in both financial and non-financial ways, is important in explaining the residential
trajectories of young people leaving home. For instance, the influence of parental support on the
ability to leave home or enter homeownership is well established. This study adds a dimension by
investigating how inequalities in terms of parental background – particularly assets – are spatially
articulated. More specifically, we study whether parental background influences the types of
neighbourhoods young people leaving home move to. Drawing on the case of Amsterdam, we
show that these ‘fledglings’, despite their generally very modest income, disproportionally move
to gentrification neighbourhoods. Moreover, fledglings with wealthy parents are even more likely
to move to both early gentrifying and expensive mature-gentrification neighbourhoods.
Gentrification research should therefore also take into account the importance of middle class
social reproduction strategies as well as the potential intergenerational transfer of (financial)
resources – rather than merely personal financial situation – in shaping housing outcomes and
spatial inequalities of young people leaving home. Drawing on parental support, young people
may be able to outbid other households and hence exclude them from gentrifying neighbourhoods.
Consequently, parental wealth and other resources can thus contribute to gentrification
and exclusion.

Several theoretical debates in gentrification literature deal with the role and importance of migration, in situ social mobility, and demographic change in urban social change. These debates focus primarily on structural processes. However, we have comparatively little insight into how and to what degree different mechanisms actually underpin upgrading in urban neighbourhoods. This paper uses Dutch register data to
show how residential mobility, social mobility, and demographic change each contribute to gentrification in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. First, our findings show that residential mobility remains key to understanding the growth of higher-income residents in gentrifiying neighbourhoods. At the same time, social mobility and demographic change—
notably ageing—are most important in explaining dwindling numbers of lower-income residents. Second, large differences exist across neighbourhoods. By mapping three ideal-typical
drivers of gentrification, we show how the migration-based ‘displacement model’ occurs predominantly in upgrading neighbourhoods with a high status. Conversely, in
low-status upgrading neighbourhoods social mobility is more important in explaining gentrification. These different forms of upgrading occur simultaneously in both cities and
should be integrated to advance our understanding of gentrification as a process that is both widespread and occurs in different, ever-changing forms across neighbourhoods.

In many western cities housing opportunities of young people are increasingly constrained due to housing market reforms and decreasing affordability as a result of processes of gentrification. Little is known about how young people deal with these constraints and how this differs across class and other boundaries. This paper addresses this question, by showing how young people make use of various forms of capital to gain access to specific sections of the housing market. Connecting concepts of Bourdieu and De Certeau to theories about housing pathways, this paper presents new ideas about how young people follow different pathways as they navigate the housing field. Next to a linear housing pathway, this paper presents two other housing pathway types: young households can either follow a chaotic pathway deliberately and relatively successfully or become trapped in a chaotic pathway. This paper shows the possession of various forms of capital and their utilization has a marked influence on the type of pathway young people follow.

This paper investigates the income levels and income developments of in-migrating, out-migrating, and sitting households in gentrifying neighbourhoods in Amsterdam over a 10-year period (1999–2008). First, to analyse these data, this paper discusses the impact of institutional and housing market contexts on the residential-mobility patterns of households and subsequently discusses the outcomes of gentrification processes. The general Continental-European context and the specific context of Amsterdam are highlighted in particular. We argue that in highly regulated markets, marginal gentrification can form an important process of neighbourhood upgrading. This contrasts the gentrification stage model. Second, using a unique, individual-level longitudinal dataset, we show that gentrifying neighbourhoods in Amsterdam arguably form cases of marginal gentrification. Recent in-migrants possess incomes that are structurally lower than the incomes of sitting residents. However, in-migrants experience significant incumbent upgrading after moving in, more so than the sitting population. The Amsterdam housing market, dominated by social-rental housing, is key to explaining these mobility patterns. Yet, a gradual liberalisation of the social-rental stock could arguably contribute to more mature forms of gentrification. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Many postindustrial cities across Europe and other contexts are marked by growing social–spatial inequalities, housing liberalization, and gentrification, which limit the housing options of low-income households. We investigated changes in the residential moves of different low-income households (working poor, low-to-middle income, and unemployed) in the Amsterdam and Rotterdam urban regions for the time period 2004–2013. We found an overarching trend for the suburbanization of poverty toward the urban peripheries and surrounding regions. While this trend appears to be relatively crisis resistant in the tight Amsterdam housing context, it is more cyclical in Rotterdam and has slowed following the global financial crisis. Low-to-middle income and unemployed households are increasingly moving to the urban regions surrounding cities, particularly to higher density satellite towns. Nevertheless, a growing number of working poor households remain highly urbanized, employing various coping strategies to acquire housing. This paper reveals how the suburbanization of poverty is both a direct process of poor households moving from city to suburb, and a broader indirect process caused by exclusionary mechanisms such as the decreasing accessibility and affordability of inner-urban neighborhoods, which reflect broader changes in the geography and socioeconomic patterning of urban regions.

In many western cities housing opportunities of young people are increasingly constrained due to housing market reforms and decreasing affordability as a result of processes of gentrification. Little is known about how young people deal with these constraints and how this differs across class and other boundaries. This paper addresses this question, by showing how young people make use of various forms of capital to gain access to specific sections of the housing market. Connecting concepts of Bourdieu and De Certeau to theories about housing pathways, this paper presents new ideas about how young people follow different pathways as they navigate the housing field. Next to a linear housing pathway, this paper presents two other housing pathway types: young households can either follow a chaotic pathway deliberately and relatively successfully or become trapped in a chaotic pathway. This paper shows the possession of various forms of capital and their utilization has a marked influence on the type of pathway young people follow.

The geographical literature on life course holds that household mobility is a key mechanism to accommodate life-course transitions. Some transitions require at least one move (e.g. coupling or separating). As such the ability and conditions under which individuals are able to make these transitions, are highly contingent on housing market structures. The affordability and accessibility of housing does not only structure mobility but also the opportunities for life course transitions – as well as their spatiality. Recent cycles of housing booms and busts in West European and North American urban regions suggest that these regional demographic processes have been subject to change. Particularly the decrease in mobility rates in times of crises might suggest that individuals postpone transition-related moves. This paper seeks to gain insight in how housing market conditions affect the regional geography of life course dynamics. This paper investigates key transitions in household formation and dissolution in the Amsterdam region before, during and after the housing crisis of 2008. We find that, in contrast to
expectations, mobility-related life-course transitions have not been affected by the crisis. Mobility rates among ‘stable’ households do show a decline though. However, we see changes between rental and ownership markets, as well as changes in the geography
of life-course transitions.

Access to homeownership has always been uneven, but recent developments point to increasing inequalities. Labour markets show divergence in terms of income and contract security, with a growing share of precarious outsiders. Intergenerational inequalities are on the rise, amplifying the importance of parental resources in assisting adult children in entering homeownership. Added to this, is a crucial spatial dimension to housing market polarization with divergence between ‘hotspot’ high-gain areas versus low-gain ‘coldspots.’ The paper tackles the question of how where one buys has gained crucial importance in structuring future housing-wealth accumulation with highly uneven access to high-gain areas. The research turns to the salient case of the
Netherlands, drawing on full-population register data. First, spatial analyses expose increasing spatial polarization in housevalue
development. Second, household-level analyses demonstrate divided housing market access, revealing the combined impact of income, employment status and different forms of parental wealth in shaping spatially variegated access. Taken together, these dynamics in spatial polarization, labour market inequality and intergenerational support may determine opportunities for housing wealth accumulation fundamentally exacerbating societal inequalities.

Age is often only implicitly acknowledged in gentrification processes. This contribution, however, places age centre stage to understand how the process has expanded into a major force of urban change. We specifically forward the importance of key transitions in the life course. While gentrification is generally associated with relatively young households, we specifically highlight the growing importance of middle-class families and ageing empty nesters and retirees, arguing for the emergence of gentrification as a multi-generational process with younger generations following in the footsteps of older ones. Inequalities between and within age groups, often related to housing restructuring, are also foregrounded. For young people it has become increasingly difficult to enter homeownership or secure rental housing. In contrast, an ageing generation has often been highly successful in accumulating housing wealth, amplifying their role in driving gentrification processes. A political economy surrounding and pushing these different age-specific forms of gentrification has emerged. The different age-specific forms of gentrification are likely to contribute to different forms of displacement hurting different residential groups.

Klassieke sociale bewegingen en vakbonden zijn de afgelopen decennia minder succesvol geworden in het mobiliseren van verzet. In dit themanummer richten we ons daarom juist op andere vormen van verzet uit onverwachte hoek, georganiseerd door gemarginaliseerde bevolkingsgroepen. Dit verzet neemt veelal subtiele, creatieve en ongebruikelijke vormen aan.

De omvang van de particuliere huursector nam in Nederland decennialang af. Momenteel is er sprake van een kentering van die trend: tussen 2012 en 2017 groeide de particuliere huursector met maar liefst 23,4%. In grote steden als Den Haag en Utrecht, maar ook in studentensteden als Groningen, Eindhoven, Tilburg en Wageningen lag de toename boven de 30%.

Een belangrijke component in de uitbreiding komt doordat koopwoningen worden opgekocht door kleine verhuurders, het zogenaamde buy-to-let. Tussen 2006 en 2016 is buy-to-let met 75% toegenomen. Het gaat dan om de aankoop van woningen voor andere doeleinden dan eigen bewoning. In zowel de drie grote steden als Groningen en Maastricht wordt inmiddels 10 à 15 procent van de koopwoningen, en dertig procent van de woningen van minder dan 50 vierkante meter opgekocht door verhuurders. Deze nieuwe spelers op de koopmarkt verdringen potentiële eigenaar-bewoners.

Het regeringsbeleid van de afgelopen jaren heeft een belangrijke rol gespeeld in de groei van de particuliere huurwoningvoorraad in het algemeen en buy-to-let in het bijzonder. De prijzen van koopwoningen zijn gestegen omdat te laat en te gematigd is ingegrepen in de hypotheekrenteaftrek en de loan-to-value (LTV) van hypotheken. Bovendien heeft beleid ingezet op een vermindering van het aantal sociale huurwoningen en het beperken van toegang tot deze woningen. Deze ontwikkelingen zetten zowel de betaalbaarheid als toegankelijkheid van wonen onder druk, zeker in de populaire steden. Er is sprake van een nieuwe periode van woningnood.

De toename van het aantal particuliere huurwoningen is een reactie op de grote vraag van groepen die zelf geen koop- of sociale huurwoning kunnen bemachtigen. De revival hangt samen met een herstructurering van gereguleerde naar geliberaliseerde huur, waardoor zowel kleinschalige verhuurders als grote beleggingsfondsen meer interesse in de sector tonen. Dit is een internationale trend. In Duitsland zijn inmiddels enkele miljoenen huurwoningen opgekocht door ‘fiscale beleggingsinstellingen’; de grootste bezit 355.000 woningen en is op zoek naar uitbreidingsmogelijkheden over de grens.

Starting in Amsterdam

Amsterdam has significantly increased in popularity the last decade: most of the inner city neighbourhoods are experiencing gentrification and the population has grown steadily – in 2012 the milestone of 800,000 inhabitants was passed. This success relates to the city’s function as an ‘escalator’: many young people move to the city to study or find work. At a later point, they might move out. Partly because housing construction has not kept up with population growth and growing housing market pressures this function is threatened.

Concerns exist that these growing pressures on the housing market disproportionally pose constraints on young households. The in- and through-flow of starters on the housing market has emerged as a growing problem. Furthermore, the structure of the Amsterdam housing market tends to favour other groups: the large social-rented sector is difficult to enter for young households due to long waiting times. Starters also have few opportunities to buy due to high housing prices and – since the crisis – strict mortgage lending criteria. This leaves the private-rented sector, which is both relatively small and expensive.

Research by the University of Amsterdam has studied the position of starters on the Amsterdam housing market. The findings paint a diffuse picture: on the one hand, the number of young households entering the Amsterdam housing market is, somewhat surprisingly, still increasing for starters in various life stages. Apparently, the desire to live in Amsterdam outweighs increasing housing costs.

Furthermore, many young households, despite having low incomes, are still able to move to expensive and gentrifying neighbourhoods.
On the other hand, however, sharper inequalities seem to be emerging. More so than for other generations, the rent quotes (the share of their income spent on housing) of young households significantly increased. Also, inequalities between starters with different backgrounds are growing. These inequalities clearly have a spatial dimension: for example, in spite of their low income, students and starters with wealthy parents are concentrated in the city’s most popular neighbourhoods such as the gentrified neighbourhoods Jordaan and De Pijp. However, starters with, for example, low-income parents, or ethnic backgrounds are increasingly found outside the ring road in the city’s more affordable neighbourhoods. The research hence suggests that better- off starters increasingly push out other starters.

We interviewed a large number of starters to gain more insight in the way they acquire housing. How is it possible that they move to the ‘best’ neighbourhoods even when they have low incomes? Instead of using financial resources to gain housing through official routes such as housing associations and real-estate agents, many young starter households use their social networks. Also, the high pressures on the housing market make illegal subletting and clandestine behaviour generally accepted. The most successful starters have (and use!) large social networks as well as a throughout knowledge of the city’s housing market. This rearticulates differences between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’.

To conclude, starters may still be able to find housing in Amsterdam, but costs and (inter- generational) inequalities are increasing. To prevent unsustainable and undesirable circumstances, like in London, a range of hard and soft measures are necessary to ensure the in- and through-flow of starters. Next to stimulating the construction of housing, the private rented sector seems to be the key. This sector provides the flexibility starters want. However, the sector is too small and too expensive.

Finally, even when starters can afford the rent, overly restrictive regulations – such as very high income requirements – prevent starters from entering the housing market. Addressing these issues is important if Amsterdam wishes to remain accessible for a high-potential young population as well as for less-advantaged starters. These groups’ enduring presence is essential for the city’s escalator function as well as imperative for its socially just character.

Gentrification is generally understood as the class-based transformation of urban space, but it is also imagined as being connected to young adulthood, as a spatial expression of the time-space trajectories of particular middle-class fractions. Although gentrification studies often do acknowledge age, we argue that life course should be treated as a key dimension to understand gentrification and segregation, and the inequalities it brings about in people's lives cumulatively. Acknowledging the central role of demographic processes in urban transformations may also help us gain insight into the political economies of life course. In urban development, state and market actors may favour certain groups while excluding others, not only across social class but also between generations and life stages. In many contexts, young adults are struggling on the housing market. This is likely to have spatial implications, as specific groups of young adults may be excluded from privileged areas or cities in general. Likewise, the intergenerational transmission of inequalities through housing wealth has spatial impacts. Age and life course may play a broader, more general, role in forging urban inequalities as well. We call for papers that investigate how life course is implicated in gentrification, urban transformation and urban inequality more generally, focussing on differentiation in age and generation. We seek papers from both the Global North and Global South dealing with the following, or related, topics: • The intersections of class and age in gentrification processes • How intergenerational inequalities and the intergenerational transmission of inequalities unfold in urban space • How urban transformations are changing the geography of demographic transitions • The role of generations in historical and contemporary urban transformations • Young people in gentrification processes as both displacers and the displaced • The cumulative effects of housing and neighbourhood trajectories on life course and (dis)advantage • The politics of life course and age in urban development Please submit your abstract (max 250 words), with name, affiliation and contact details, to Willem Boterman (w.r.boterman@uva.nl) before October 18 th. Accepted applicants will be notified by October 20th and asked to register for the AAG conference by 25 October 2017.