Abstract
The central goal of this book is not just to make the claim about densification leading to social exclusion and gentrification in housing, but rather to explain—with the help of the IRR analytical framework (see Chapter 2) —what local governance mechanisms at play are responsible for this development and to identify the reasons behind this complex situation. To accomplish this aim, three theoretical blocks were identified that help to understand densification from a neoinstitutional and actor-centered perspective: social sustainability in housing (dependent variable), institutions (independent variable), and actors’ use strategies (intermediary variable (see Chapter 2 for theoretical basis). At the end of Chapter 3, five research hypotheses are presented, which address all the main dimensions needed to cover the main research question in a convincing manner.
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3.1 Housing Study Focus: Governing Densification for Socially Sustainable Housing Development
In the following chapters, the theoretical approach and the IRR analytical framework introduced (Sects. 2.5–2.9) are used to understand the implementation process of densification goals in the urban housing segment (study focus of this book). More precisely, the actor-centered new institutionalist political ecology approach (Chapter 2) enables researchers to analyze and to explain why many different stakeholders can come into resource conflict with each other in a densifying urban environment. It makes possible to trace the concrete mechanisms of (unfair) power distribution and the socio-political structures involved that help to understand why some actors tend to win while others lose. By socio-political it is meant that legal configurations (laws and policies) (Sect. 3.5) are analyzed as well as actors’ decision-making behavior (Sect. 3.6).
3.2 Governance of Densification for Sustainable Urban Housing Development
Governance in this book is generally appraised as “the interactions among structures, processes and traditions that determine how power and responsibilities are exercised, how decisions are taken, and how citizens or other stakeholders have their say” (Graham et al., 2003: 2). It is about spheres of public debate, partnership, interaction, dialogue, and indeed conflict and dispute entered into by citizens, civil organizations, and by public authorities (Evans et al., 2006: 850).
Making explicit the governance mechanisms of possible sustainability trade-offs and power games among actors involved in densification procedures is a new contribution of this book to international land use planning, and urban and housing research. Neglecting the governance mechanisms at play in which actors succeed or fail in defending their interests—especially regarding their influence on decision-making procedures leading to social exclusion, segregation, or inequality—enable to make power structures among actors explicit. By answering the question how and why various actors involved in densification procedures question, disrupt, modify, and use the socio-political setting to appropriate resources, and thus potentially cause them to change, this research project brings new insights to the mentioned disciplines.
Figure 3.1 summarizes the three key elements on which the governance understanding (see first paragraph, Sect. 3.2) of the IRR analytical framework is built on: institutions including formal policy instruments (independent variable), actors’ use strategies (intermediate variable), and the condition of the housing resource (dependent variable). By analyzing the governance mechanisms at play (black arrows in Fig. 3.1) between the three main variables, the IRR analytical approach enables to explain why some groups or interests experience disproportional access to housing and tend to lose while others tend to win (power relations). In other words, the identified governance mechanisms are defined as places of power where actors involved in densification procedures are able to influence the “rules of the game” (North, 1994), their activation or implementation process in a targeted way (Gerber & Debrunner, 2022). Depending on the institutional setting, stakeholders have different means to either change these intervention ways or try to influence others to do so. These mechanisms are at the same time the channels through which stakeholders exercise power.
In the following chapter, I will explain each row, column, and arrow of Fig. 3.1, which explains the governance of densification procedures, in greater detail. I start with the dependent variable—the condition of the housing stock resource—and proceed with the independent (Sect. 3.5) and intermediary (Sect. 3.6) variables.
3.3 Housing Stock: Evaluating the Condition of a Resource
Although the IRR has traditionally been applied to the study of natural resources (e.g. land, water), the framework is also well suited for the analysis of non-natural resources. Because analytically, “neither the environment as such or parts of features of the environment per se are resources; they become resources only if, when, and in so far as they are, or are considered to be, capable of serving man’s needs. The word ‘resource’ is an expression of appraisal and, hence, a purely subjective concept” (Zimmermann, 1933: 3). The IRR identifies the definition of resources as socially constructed. A resource is acknowledged as inseparable from humans and their wants. It is defined by its use or its integration into an economic or political context (Kébir, 2010: 70). The use of a resource is dependent on its use value that results from the respective social context within which human goals and capabilities are shaped (Bathelt & Glückler, 2005: 1547).
By following a resource-oriented approach, the IRR analytical approach enables to take multiple and conflicting resources use situations into consideration (see Sect. 2.5). Each resource (be it housing or others such as water or green spaces) creates unique use(r) constellations in which various actors find themselves as rivals. The IRR thus follows a more comprehensive approach as it is capable of portraying the complexity of heterogenous use situations. This becomes all the more relevant in dense urban environments since resources such as urban land get scarce and contested, and various actors request use or disposal rights upon them.
In this book, different goods and services produced by the resource “housing stock”—the use of which is significantly changed by densification—are analyzed in detail. While “housing” is generally used to describe the construction and usage of buildings in which people live in, the term “housing stock” refers to the total number of dwellings (houses, flats, maisonettes, bed-sits etc.) in a given area (Balmer & Bernet, 2015). Indeed, housing stocks as a resource may be used for different purposes: for shelter but also for non-residential services such as investment, energy supply, urban design, or immigration. Energy suppliers, for example, rely on the demand created by housing stocks to sell their product. Urban designers rely on the physical characteristics of the buildings to create suitable urban space (Nicol, 2011: 459). Moreover, the housing stock is a resource that is unique in a few respects. It is a durable and long-lasting resource often existing for more than a century (Balmer & Bernet, 2015: 181). It is also an economically significant resource. Traded on the free market, housing is a commodity with enormous economic potential which is why it is often treated as a highly valued collateral (e.g. Aalbers, 2017).
Especially in cities, where demand for housing is high and the potential for capital accumulation is lucrative, the competition between actors interested in using urban land for housing investment is rising and rents increase simultaneously. The obligation to promote densification introduced by many states and cities has even reinforced this competition leading to scarcity of space and corresponding land and rent value increases (Breheny, 1992: 143; Harvey, 2012: 127). This financial potential of urban housing stocks is, however, in several ways juxtaposed with the role of housing to provide the basic necessity of shelter. According to the Universal Declaration of Human RightsFootnote 1 (Article 25), housing represents a basic human need and essential good. When residents do not have the funds necessary to access housing provided by the free market then the provision of the basic human right for shelter is foregone un-less governmental action is taken (Brenner et al., 2012: 224; Schönig, 2020; Schönig et al., 2017).
Finally, the housing stock in many cities—due to increased CO2 emissions in old buildings—presents a target for energy policy efforts (see e.g. UN Agenda 21; UN Habitat Agenda). Through the renovation and conversion of existing apartments, the energy requirement per capita is to be reduced (e.g. Bhatti, 2001; Bhatti & Dixon, 2003; Næss & Saglie, 2019; Priemus, 2005). To limit energy emissions, upgrading of existing, partially historically protected buildings is absolutely necessary, which in turn has a direct influence on rent prices after the reconstruction and the preservation of the architectural heritage (Nicol, 2013). In sum, housing has a crucial role to play in the sustainable development of cities due to its various functions for different groups and individuals.
The decisions taken by actors involved in specific housing uses must be considered in detail if the question of housing sustainability is to be thoroughly addressed (Nicol, 2011: 459). This objective can only be attained, however, if all users jointly ensure that the quantities they extract or withdraw from the stock do not reach the limit of the reproductive capacity of the resource system (Gerber et al., 2009: 800). Otherwise, rivalries between different user actors occur because the use of a good or service extracted from the housing resource interferes with the use of other goods and services by another actor (Nicol & Knoepfel, 2008: 161). In the following section, the aim is to emphasize what a (socially) sustainable status of housing conditions might look like so that user conflicts do not lead to overuse or the depletion of the housing resource.
3.4 Housing Sustainability: With a Focus on Its Social Dimension (Dependent Variable)
Even though the IRR analytical framework has always been closely linked to the political and scientific debates about sustainability, evaluating the concept in regard to the interactions between its three dimensions—ecological, economic, and social—has largely been missing so far (see e.g. Nicol, 2013; Hengstermann, 2019). Mainly because the IRR has an often-unstated bias towards ecological sustainability (reproduction of the capital) as it evolved out of environmental debates of the 1980s (Gerber et al., 2020). Its original focus built on a “hard or strong sustainability” (Jacobs, 1992) perspective which implies that renewable resources must not be drawn down faster than they can be renewed. Natural capital must not be spent, but we must live off the income produced by the capital.
Sustainability, in other words, was understood as the physical end-state of the environment that can be sustained over time, while sustainable development was seen as a process of change towards achieving sustainability goals (Marcuse, 1998). The primary attempt of the IRR approach was to regulate the emission of pollutants in a way that leads to less environmental degradation. The presumed neutrality of ecology as a science when entering environmental debates was moreover seen as illusory (Knoepfel et al., 2001, 2007) because political choices were identified as responsible for environmental impacts and resources degradation. Hence, even though the evolvement of the IRR approach has always been strongly linked to Neo-Marxist political ecology perspectives (see Sect. 2.4, e.g. Robbins, 2004), and the study of power relations in political decision-making. The connection between power and sustainability has not been made explicit since power was regarded as an integral element of the rules in force (e.g. property rights).
Therefore, in light of this book, greater emphasis is put on the relationship between power and sustainability to understand which factors provide certain individuals with the power to defend their own interests in resource use. Furthermore, to understand this complexity, greater awareness is being put on the social dimension of sustainability that allows for capturing the origins, causes, and effects of socio-environmental disputes in more detail. This is done by the structured analysis of the actors’ constellations, their resource use strategies (of owners and non-owners), and their decision-making behavior within the agency.
In particular, my intention in the next chapters is to advance a conceptualization of social sustainability in regard to housing challenges in dense city areas (Sect. 3.4.2) in order to “bring light into the dark” and to make a rather fuzzy concept feasible and transparent for my research. Stressing the unique social features of sustainable housing development presents my first step towards an interpretation that is sufficiently rigorous to provide useful tools for practical analysis and effective policy-making.
3.4.1 Social Sustainability as an Analytical Framework of Reference
Despite the nearly universal acknowledgment that sustainable cities are a desirable policy goal (for discussion, e.g. Barbier, 1987; Khan, 1995), there is still less certainty about what this might mean in practice and how to define the concept in any analytically rigorous way (Williams, 2010). Since the popular release of the Brundtland report in 1987Footnote 2 (WCED, 1987), many deductive approaches have been published on the conceptualization of sustainability (for discussion, e.g. Christen & Schmidt, 2012; Elliot, 1999; Jabareen, 2008; Redclift, 2005).
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the concept of sustainability has primarily been understood to endorse the pursuit of economic growth under the condition that the environment will not be damaged too much. The goal was to seek maximum economic growth while minimizing environmental degradation (e.g. Cernea, 1993). The driving force behind the conception of sustainability was “the belief that if the environment continues to be degraded, economic growth will be stifled. Therefore, economic growth can only be sustained if attention is paid to sustaining resources and the environment” (Portney, 1994: 830). In a second variation, academic literature mainly focused on the environment. A sustainable city was associated with efficient waste management, recycling opportunities, reduced car dependency and greater use of alternative modes of transport in order to limit cities’ ecological footprint (e.g. Bromley et al., 2005). The primary aim was to sustain the physical environment while economic growth was considered of secondary importance.
In housing, for instance, the energy crises of the 1970s created awareness for building environmentally sustainably. Ideas of energy efficiency and concern about the wasteful use of fossil fuels became increasingly promoted. Technological advancements with renewable materials, energies, and construction techniques were introduced that helped to reduce the destructive environmental impacts of housing (Nicol & Knoepfel, 2008: 158). The main intention was to prevent environmental damage by the observation that every action taken on behalf of economic growth should seek to be as environmentally sensitive as possible (Portney, 1994: 830). Later on, this idea strongly influenced the development of the IRR approach, which evolved out of the environmental debates of the 1980s. It intended to deal with the use of the environment as a sink for pollution, therefore attempting to regulate the emission of pollutants, but with considering resources use capacity as a whole (Gerber et al., 2020).
As this summary of the literature shows, however, the social dimension of sustainability has only received little attention in policy, planning, and academia so far even though it has been more than forty years since the Brundtland report’s release (for discussion, e.g. Foladori, 2005; Manzi, 2010; Murphy, 2012; Weingaertner & Moberg, 2014; Woodcraft, 2012). Within the densification debate, for example, for many years the least explored and most ambiguous claim was that the compact city is socially equitable (Burton, 2003: 538). During the 1980s, urban regeneration projects focused mainly on economic and environmental aspects of degraded inner-city areas while neglecting social aspects (Rérat, 2012: 116). Nevertheless, emphasizing the environmental and economic spheres exclusively has been increasingly questioned during the 1990s (for discussion, e.g. Basiago, 1999; Budd et al., 2008; Crabtree, 2006; Mitlin & Satterthwaite, 1996; Redclift, 2005). Mainly because the three sustainability dimensions were considered to be strongly interlinked. The diminishing of one affects that of the others.
Until today, however, there is still no broad consensus on the meaning of the term “social sustainability”. The concept is far more difficult to quantify than economic growth or environmental impact (for discussion, e.g. IFHP, 2019; Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development, 2007). It is considered a vague and fuzzy concept that comes with a number of ethical, political, and methodological challenges (Davidson, 2010; Woodcraft, 2012). Moreover, the concept of social sustainability itself is culture-dependent (Chiu, 2003) and inherently normative in both the theoretical conceptualization and the pursuit of translating subsequent new insights into empirical research and effective policy agendas (Jonkman, 2019). A brief review of the literature shows how social sustainability has been conceptualized over time (Table 3.1).
A clear distinction must be drawn between the three concepts of “social sustainability”, “social justice”, and “social inclusion”: while the concept of “social sustainability” has evolved out of environmental debates and is strongly related to ecological issues such as land use planning (e.g. Campbell, 1996; Elkin et al., 1991), the concept of “social justice” has mostly been addressed by philosophy (e.g. Polanyi, 1957; Rousseau, 1762) and critical social sciences (e.g. Fainstein, 2001, 2010; Harvey, 1973; Rawls, 1972; Sen, 1999). In justice literature, the question of the ethical foundation of society has challenged mankind since the dawn of civilization. The idea of social justice has become a key element of these reflections (Heidenreich, 2011). Consequently, the concept of social justice is closely linked with broader issues of social relevance such as migration or gender research resulting in insights that are extendable to a perspective on society as a whole, independently of individual preferences (Ketschau, 2015). Justice incorporates a set of topics that could best be described as attempts to improve or maintain “the quality of life of people” (Weingaertner & Moberg, 2014: 129) as well as social well-being and freedom (Woodcraft, 2012: 31). It constitutes an inherent part of sustainable development (Langhelle, 2000: 296).
In contrast, “social sustainability” inherits both a perspective on the individual and on the society (Elkington, 1999). It places explicit value on the intergenerational stability of communities (Ketschau, 2015) and on the initial control over natural resources (Barry, 1991: 238). While some social sustainability scholars concentrate on the long-term viable setting for human interaction (Biart, 2002; Yiftachel & Hedgcock, 1993), others emphasize context-sensitivity (Vallance et al., 2011) and community stability (Colantonio & Dixon, 2009; Griessler & Littig, 2005; Karlsson, 2018). Other researchers focus more on pragmatic relative improvements in resource distribution (Chiu, 2003; Polese & Stren, 2000; Portney, 1994) (Table 3.1). In essence, the judgment, evaluation, and reflection on whether social sustainability in urban development is given or not can be made along broader principles of social (in)justice.
Thirdly, the concept of “social inclusion”—explicitly in reference to housing studies—refers to a condition, where residents live in circumstances that meet their basic needs or physical adequacy of life (Chiu, 2004; Lee & Evans, 2020; Slater, 2015). It refers to the level of integration and social position in which people are recognizably at lesser risk of experiencing a crisis, such as lack of control, residential displacement, discrimination, or loss of the home (Beer et al., 2016; Lombard, 2021). Social inclusion therefore serves as a key indicator of whether residents feel safe in their respective living situations or are confronted with the threat of losing a stable, secure, and affordable home (Cardoso et al., 2021).
Hence, the three concepts—social justice, social sustainability, and social inclusion—derive from different academic stands, but have always been closely related to one another. In Sects. 3.4.2 and 3.4.3, I further emphasize social sustainability and explain how the concept is assessed and operationalized in terms of housing in this book.
3.4.2 Social Sustainability in Housing
For the past twenty years, much quantitative (see e.g. Bibby et al., 2018; Broitman & Koomen, 2015; Kyttä et al., 2013; Schmidt-Thomé et al., 2013) and qualitative research (see e.g. Bramley et al., 2009; Chiu, 2004; Colantonio & Dixon, 2009; Dempsey et al., 2009; Mccrea & Walters, 2012; Savini, 2011; Vallance et al., 2011) has been conducted on measuring the social impacts of urban densification. Different notions of “social sustainability” in relation to urban land use have emerged all aiming to (inter)link the stimulation of economic activities and environmental improvements with social and cultural elements of the city (Table 3.1).
To strengthen the understanding of core issues related to the concept of social sustainability in housing, indicators of how socially sustainable processes and outcomes can be evaluated are introduced (Table 3.2). The criteria figure as a well-founded and theory-based tool to operationalize and monitor the development of housing stocks (Christen & Schmidt, 2012: 405). However, as remarked in the previous section, it is important to distinguish what is actually meant by social sustainability in housing and how the term is deployed to establish relational identities and perspectives by different stakeholders (Evans & Jones, 2008: 1430). Otherwise, there is a risk that criteria based on solely individuals’ norms are introduced that do not allow for a more objective assessment.
Therefore, in Table 3.2, key themes and indicators of social sustainability performance in housing are introduced that enable a systematic evaluation of residential densification processes. The evaluative framework is based on a theoretical understanding of what social sustainability in housing means and is analyzed in close connection with ecologic and economic sustainability. The definition of such indicators is always subjective and depends on different normative principles as well as specific perspectives taken (Fürst & Scholles, 2001: 139; Khan, 1995: 64). However, planning for sustainable housing development does not work without the evaluation of conditions, processes, and outcomes in order to be able to assess what deficiencies might need to be addressed or what needs to remain because it corresponds with the targeted goals introduced (Budd et al., 2008: 260; Curdes, 1995: 54).
Only in doing so, planners and other practitioners are able to make a real judgment and validate the outcomes of their evaluations. This will reduce the degree of subjectivity in the policy analysis process (for discussion, e.g. Alexander & Faludi, 1989; Baer, 1997; Laurian et al., 2010; Norton, 2005; Oliveira & Pinho, 2011). Nevertheless, criteria formulation is not merely a checklist design rather it is to be seen as a necessary skill of planning professions (Shahab et al., 2019: 535). I therefore believe that the indicators introduced in Table 3.2 provide a valuable starting point for the assessment of social aspects of housing and for the detailed analysis of socially sustainable settlement transformation.
3.4.3 Social Sustainability in Housing as Emic Approach
To further operationalize and to provide a comprehensive and integrated framework for analyzing social sustainability in housing, in Article 2 an emic sustainability approach is introduced. This analysis approach addresses social sustainability concerns in housing from a perspective that emphasizes community members’ views on participation, negotiation, and the extent to which they can integrate their own views into the institution-building process (for discussion, e.g. Dolsak & Ostrom, 2003; Haller et al., 2016). The emic approach introduced works with the indicators presented in Table 3.2 on a broader scale but further considers the perspectives of communities and individuals’ on social displacement (McCrea & Walters, 2012: 191).
The understanding how residents involved perceive impacts of urban (re)development on their housing livability is considered as crucial to explain whether socially sustainable development is given or not (Bramley et al., 2009: 2129). Land use challenges, such as the shift towards densification, are analyzed from the ground up as they are experienced by local communities and people actually affected by consolidation projects. The added value and legitimacy of such an emic perspective is that it is clearly most sensitive to community, local needs, and values. Any action that renders the residential community worse off is not considered compatible with urban social sustainability since the principle source of evidence is constituted by the people themselves, particularly those living in the areas in question. In other words, dense cities are not considered socially sustainable if they are not acceptable to people as places in which to live, work, and interact, or if their communities are unstable and dysfunctional (Bramley et al., 2009; Vallance et al., 2011).
This approach derives from a broad body of policy ecology literature on “actually existing sustainabilities” (for discussion, e.g. Cook & Kothari, 2001; Evans & Jones, 2008; Evans et al., 2006; Hargreaves, 2004; Krueger & Agyeman, 2005; Krueger & Gibbs, 2007). The authors of these studies claim that, regardless of whether development projects are obtained through intentions associated with achieving environmental justice or otherwise, they must be consistent with the goals of creating sustainable communities (Portney, 1994: 838). Stated another way, “to be socially and culturally sustainable, development must be gauged by the values that a society itself, or some member thereof, deems to be requisite for its health and welfare” (Goulet, 1971: 333). If local community members believe that change detracts from their established and preferred ways of living, they may actively resist such changes (Newman & Wyly, 2006; Wyly et al., 2010). Therefore, understanding the implications of, and reasons behind such refusals is important in two aspects (Vallance et al., 2011: 345): first, to effectively support bio-physical environmental goals (e.g. shift towards densification), and second to recognize that the pursuit of such goals might actually be counter-productive and hence unsustainable overall.
In housing, for instance, Jenks et al. (1996: 84) stated that to be truly socially sustainable, the city must have a reasonable degree of support from local residents. If not, those who can will continue to live in the city, and only the most disadvantaged will have to leave. A scenario that is highly unsustainable. The applied emic approach and the criteria used to evaluate social sustainability in housing are further introduced and conceptualized in Article 2.
3.5 Institutional Regime Regulating the Housing Stock (Independent Variable)
To understand how all shelter and non-shelter uses of the housing stock are governed, the IRR framework analyzes the ensemble of regulatory conditions that produce changes in the management strategies of the actors involved (Nicol, 2013). The IRR distinguishes two main categories of formalized rules—public policies and property rights—that operate according to a different logic and rely on opposing legitimizations.
3.5.1 Housing Public Policies
Examples of public policies regulating housing under densification pressure include, for instance, housing, social welfare, environmental, or land use policies (Fig. 2.1). These are generally defined as (see e.g. Baptista & O’Sullivan, 2008; Benjaminsen & Dyb, 2008; Kemeny, 2001; Lennartz, 2011; O’Sullivan & de Decker, 2007; Ronald, 2013);
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Housing Policy: Housing policies encompass a range of public measures aimed at addressing housing needs, affordability, and accessibility for the population.
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Social Welfare Policy: Social welfare policies are designed to support individuals and families in need and ensure social equity on a general level.
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Environmental Policy: Environmental policies aim to address the impact of urban development on the natural environment and to promote sustainable practices.
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Land Use Policy: Land use policies govern how land is allocated, used, and distributed in urban areas and steer spatial development on a general level.
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Heritage Protection or Cultural Heritage Policy: Such policies aim to protect significant landmarks, buildings, archaeological sites, cultural landscapes, and intangible cultural heritage from damage, destruction, or inappropriate alterations.
Each of these housing public policies—regulated through public laws (see Sect. 2.6)—have a direct impact on both housing stock owners and other user actors such as tenants or neighbors (see Sect. 2.9). First, because public policies can place limits and restrictions on the rights of stock owners accorded them by property rights. For example, housing policies that aim to protect tenants from social exclusion may prevent an owner from raising rents according to market prices. Second, such public policies can accord use rights to persons other than the stock owner, for example, tenants or NGOs. For instance, residents’ use rights can be obtained either directly from the property owner or as results of attribution or redistribution of rights resulting from the implementation of a public policy. For example, owners may be granted low-interest loans with a long payback period via tax policy, but on the condition that they build affordable dwellings (Nicol & Knoepfel, 2008: 170). Thereby, public policies can indirectly intervene in different actors’ housing use interests.
3.5.2 Housing Policy Instruments
Housing policy instruments refer to specific institutional rules, laws, and regulations—enshrined in public and private law—aiming to shape and influence housing-related issues, such as increasing housing affordability, promoting sustainable housing development, reducing homelessness, ensuring adequate housing for all citizens, or steering tenants’ or homeowners’ behavior on the housing market (see Balmer & Gerber, 2017; Gerber et al., 2018). These instruments are essential legal rules used by governments, public authorities, policymakers, and other actors (e.g. homeowners) to strategically achieve specific housing outcomes or policy objectives (see Chapter 2, part II and 5.3 of this book for more details). Some common housing policy instruments include:
Public law housing instruments (regulated through public policy):
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Housing financial support (e.g. affordable housing funding programs; housing finance policies; housing subsidies or vouchers; tax incentives for developers; public housing programs; advantageous mortgages; bank guarantees; subsidized loans; homeless prevention and assistance; property tax policies; housing trust funds; housing finance regulations; land banking; housing rehabilitation programs)
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Zoning measures (e.g. inclusionary zoning; zones for affordable housing; zones for the protection from redevelopment; special land use zones for affordable housing provision; quotas for affordable housing; pre-emption rights; rights-to-first-refusal; added land value capturing; housing codes and standards; density bonuses; land readjustments)
Private law housing instruments (regulated through the Civil Code):
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Housing contracts —in the context of housing often regulated through tenancy law—(e.g. rent control mechanisms; tenants‘ protection from redevelopment or eviction; eviction controls; urban development contracts; public–private-partnerships (PPP); affordable housing covenants; tenants‘ rights of appeal)
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Housing property rights (e.g. public land purchase; public housing; non-profit cooperative housing; expropriation; long-term ground leases on public land to non-profit housing cooperatives; community-land-trusts)
These are just a few examples of public and private law housing policy instruments that can be utilized to address specific housing challenges. The effectiveness of each instrument depends on the context and the coordinated efforts of various stakeholders involved in housing and urban development. Moreover, these housing policy instruments work in combination to create a comprehensive approach to address housing challenges and meet the diverse needs of individuals and communities. Public authorities, policymakers, but also homeowners or tenants, often strategically activate and tailor these tools to the specific circumstances and goals of their respective jurisdictions.
3.6 Actors’ Housing Use Strategies (Intermediary Variable)
In general, the IRR distinguishes between regulators, owner-, and user actors each of which can guide, structure, or even determine housing use through their strategic behavior. In the following, the strategies employed by the actors involved in the decision-making process about residential densification are outlined.
3.6.1 Active Municipal Land Policy for Sustainable Housing
Even though there are various public actors—at the national, regional, and local level—whose decision-making directly shapes and (re)defines the housing landscape, in liberal states, the municipality is the public actor mainly responsible for dealing with housing challenges (Rudolf et al., 2018: 476). As regulators, municipal authorities (administrative level), on behalf of the city council (executive level) and the city parliament (legislative level), create, control, or dictate housing use rights.
The public regulations they apply do not directly affect the housing stock itself but the actors whose actions have direct consequences upon the stock’s use and development (Nicol & Knoepfel, 2008: 166). More precisely, municipal authorities may (re)- or (de)activate different policy instruments (Article 3) to alter land parcels in size and shape and to promote tenants’ social inclusion such as freehand purchase, expropriation, or pre-emption rights (e.g. Schönig, 2020; Vollmer & Kadi, 2018). The selection of these instruments is never neutral but highly political in nature. The choice corresponds to a specific interpretation of the role played by the state and/or its private partners (for discussion, e.g. Alterman, 2007; Hartmann & Spit, 2015; Needham, 2006, 2014; Needham & Verhage, 1998; Needham et al., 2018). In making this choice, municipal administrations change the use conditions for specific interest groups. For example, shifts towards owner-occupied housing may stimulate speculative activity and simultaneously undermine the availability and affordability of rental housing (Kadi & Ronald, 2014: 271). In Article 3 of this book (Sect. 5.4), I introduce and discuss four different types of intervention municipal authorities use to promote socially sustainable housing in dense cities. These intervention ways derive from the IRR approach.
Besides the legal rules and instruments, which a municipality can formally introduce to promote sustainable housing, contemporary planning scholars (e.g. Gerber et al., 2018; Hengstermann, 2019; Needham et al., 2018), have recently started to talk about active vs. municipal land policy approach in a context of land scarcity: meaning that the selection of instruments by public officials has so far often been presented in a functionalist way as if it depends merely on technical choices (Lascoumes & Le Galès, 2005). An active land policy approach, in contrast, involves besides the mere introduction of new rules, in addition, of the strategic activation of the existing rules in force for sustainable settlement transformation. For instance, a city administration might have multiple legal housing instruments in place (e.g. inclusionary zoning, pre-emption rights, housing funding for cooperatives), but still, might fail to implement these measures in a targeted manner (e.g. for the provision of affordable housing for elderly people or marginalized groups). Vice versa, a municipality might have worked for several years on the strategic positioning of its spatial territory (e.g. as climate-neutral city), however, municipal responsitivies lack legal leeway to transform the strategic thoughts to actual measures on the ground (e.g. finances for public land purchase). Therefore, planning scholars have rather recently started to talk about active vs. passive land policy approaches, which are generally distinct as follows:
Active Municipal Land Policy for Sustainable Housing Development: refers to a strategy developed, activated, and followed by municipal planning administrations (often in close interaction with other public administrative offices) to effectively reinforce their position in the face of legally powerful landowners in the interest of the public, and in order to address rivalrous land use situations in a targeted manner (Alterman, 1990; Schönig, 2020). Generally spoken, Andreas Hengstermann and Jean-David Gerber (2018) referred to it as “all public decisions and actions aiming to implement politically defined spatial development objectives through changes in the use, distribution and value of land”. Hence, active land policy aims to defend a specific democratically predefined policy interest or objective (e.g. affordable housing, climate protection, or adaption) through the deliberate and goal-oriented application of certain instruments or the combination thereof (Gerber et al., 2018). For example, as densification implies a form of planning that goes beyond zoning to deal with complex property rights situations or mosaic-rights of ways, strategic competencies of municipal authorities include e.g. amicable purchase, long-term building leases on public land, public–private contracts, and so on (Hartmann & Spit, 2015; Needham et al., 2018).
Moreover, because property titles give additional power to their holders to shape urban development, public planning authorities too can use them to reinforce their position (Gerber et al., 2017). In the context of urban land scarcity, in addition, municipal planning authorities need to understand the technical challenges of densification. Thus, they must strategically (re)consider neighborhood conflicts, socio-economic population compositions, engaging with stakeholders, initiating projects that align with the long-term vision of the city, and they must know the underlying property rights’ structure if they aim to densify sustainably, without discrimination, displacement, or social exclusion. Hence, in essence, such an active strategy requires the combination of both—public and private law instruments—and strategic activation of them, in order to not only limit property owners’ rights, but also work with property rights to enhance the effectiveness of public goal implementation.
In contrast,
Passive Municipal Land Policy: refers to a non-goal-oriented strategy followed by municipal planning administrations, which neither involves the targeted introduction of specific instruments, nor a strategic positioning or activation of the rules in force (or both of them lack). Hence, the planning authority does not actively introduce specific instruments or strategic plans to promote development or address specific housing needs. Consequently, the municipal planning authority does often adopt a wait-and-see approach (often also due to missing financial or personnel resources or know-how), relying on external actors (e.g. private developers) to take the initiative in proposing and implementing projects on land within municipal boundaries.
In sum, active municipal land policy differs from a legalistic planning approach in the sense that it involves and brings a more actors-oriented approach to planning (see Chapter 2, theoretical background on “new institutional economics”). It is not only about the mere introduction of instruments, but instead, also about the actors involved, their specific strategies, their personnel or financial resources, and local objectives that decides and influences how, where, and for the benefit of whom spatial (housing) development takes place.
3.6.2 The Power of Housing Property Owners as Titleholders
Property owners (in the housing context often defined as “homeowners”) are the target groups of land use policy (Knoepfel & Nahrath, 2007; Knoepfel et al., 2003: 337). As such they play a central role in the institutional regime as they do not only have a right to use the housing stock built on their land, but they also have a contractual obligation to maintenance it. They are entitled to formal property rights and hence have the power to select—through contracting mechanisms—what user-actors have which use rights on the goods and services provided by the housing estate they own (Nicol & Knoepfel, 2008: 166). Moreover, due to their strong position as titleholders, property owners are well-equipped to resist public policy intervention. Consequently, municipal authorities encounter difficulties in implementing their housing and land use schemes due to the powerful resistance of private property owners (Sect. 3.5).
The push for urban density symbolizes enormous economic potential for private owners. They can increase their investment possibilities through the option to (re)construct at central locations and within city boundaries. Either they build on newly created plots or on existing plots where increased density is allowed (Charmes & Keil, 2015; Holman et al., 2015; Touati-Morel, 2015: 606). Urban consolidation presents a real possibility for investors because rent revenue can be enhanced in the short term through targeted redevelopment and upgrading of existing stocks (Brenner, 2009; Brenner & Theodore, 2002; Harvey, 2005; Theodore et al., 2011). Owners can realize an enhanced income stream over an extended time by virtue of their exclusive control over the land and the housing stock that is built on.
Centrality to transport and communications networks, and general proximity within the financial center play a crucial role in this matter, not only because property owners can ask for higher prices for the land and rents because of its accessibility (Theurillat et al., 2014: 1426). Moreover, under scarce land conditions, speculating on future real-estate values becomes a lucrative investment asset (Harvey, 2012: 250–252). The housing stock is being used by institutional investors as a value-enhancing investment opportunity, especially given the current low or even negative interest rate situation in the capital markets. Property owners (particularly institutional investors) consider housing at central locations a safe investment and lucrative speculative object (Aalbers, 2017).
While planners are typically interested in the use value of land and urban housing stocks as they have a greater long-term responsibility to maintain and secure resources use, private investors primarily focus on its exchange value on financial markets (including speculation). Consequently, particularly in liberal states, private owners have a general tendency to consider real-estate assets as an investment, while the municipality appears quite powerless (Gerber et al., 2017: 1686–1699).
In daily practice, three main categories of institutional ownership are differentiated into private foundations, private companies, and private investment funds (for discussion, e.g. Bord, 2006; Csikos, 2008; Theurillat & Crevoisier, 2013; Theurillat et al., 2014). In addition, pension funds and other small private investors are identified as intermediary groups that collect, manage, and invest the deposited funds of their clients (Hübschle et al., 1990). This includes investors such as banks or insurance companies, who invest their money into real estate to deposit their capital. The other three main categories of legal entities belong to the shareholders or the investors, founders, or fund owners who provide the capital for share or foundation creation. Furthermore, there are a variety of small investors (individual homeowners).
Portfolio logic on the financial markets not only guarantees almost instantaneous reallocation of capital as results of the separation between the functions of the economic entrepreneur and the financial investor. Moreover, portfolio value reflects the mimetic behaviors of the shareholders as well as the broader systemic fluctuations in the various financial markets (Theurillat & Crevoisiers, 2013: 2055). In case of private limited companies, general assembly meetings also participate in decision-making. By law, investment funds and private foundations do not have such a “legislative” body, but in case they obtain bank loans, the responsible bank as the creditor is also involved in decision-making processes to ensure returns. All investor types are advised and supported by various private firms of the real-estate industry such as private planning or architecture offices, developers, real-estate managers, construction companies, or rating agencies. The formal owners usually outsource the management and planning of their properties to these specialized firms. Sometimes, these companies are subsidiaries of the landowning firm or belong to the construction companies that build the housing project (Knoepfel et al., 2012).
3.6.3 Tenants’ Housing Resistance and Decommodification Strategies
Tenants represent the inhabitants or end-users living in the housing stock (Fig. 3.1; middle row). They either have a right to use a dwelling described in a rent contract or they simply appropriate a housing use that is unregulated (e.g. in the form of squatting or temporary housing) (Nicol & Knoepfel, 2008: 166). In the last two decades, a growing housing crisis has emerged in many cities worldwide, which has strongly influenced how and where residents are able to house (Kemeny, 2006; Lennartz, 2011; Matznetter & Mundt, 2012; Scanlon et al., 2015; Schönig et al., 2017). Many lower-income households no longer had the financial means to become owner-occupiers, to maintain mortgage burdens, or to access public housing (Harloe, 1982: 41).
The transition was further exacerbated by state withdrawal, budget cuts, and a general shift away from subsidized rental housing towards market-based sustenance of housing provision (for discussion, e.g. Aalbers & Holm, 2008; Andersen, 2017; Hackworth & Smith, 2001). This shift included the transformation of the public sector itself, which in many states has become a market-oriented version. For instance, by introducing market principles into public administration (see “new public management” literature, e.g. Dibben & Higgins, 2004; Gerber, 2016; Harvey, 1989; Hughes, 2003; Osborne & Gaebler, 1992). Consequently, the housing supply has generally started to work in the interests of the profit-oriented property sector and not the public. This has led to rising social exclusion and inequality mechanisms in cities (Marcuse, 2009).
However, to counteract trends of social exclusion and gentrification in housing, city residents have initiated resistance strategies that aim towards “decommodification”: by definition, decommodification is the counterpart to commodification which can be understood as the action of turning something (housing, goods, people, animals, needs, etc.) into a commodity. For Esping-Andersen (2011), decommodification refers to the degree to which individuals, or families, can uphold a socially acceptable standard of living independent of market participation. In other words: decommodification means the emancipation from market dependencies, and hence is a process that “seeks to get out of the logic of the market, characterized by monetary valuation and exchange, nowhere more prevalent than in property-based economies [and] seeks to leave the ‘exchange value’ of goods and services to focus more on their ‘use value’” (Gerber & Gerber, 2017: 553).
Esping-Andersen considered labor markets, but other scholars included housing, land use, or any other markets in their decommodification research (Kadi & Ronald, 2014; Kolocek, 2017). Holm (2006), for instance, added that such emancipation from housing market dynamics occurs in three different areas: money (through funding and subsidies), property (when building permits are equipped with certain duties for the developer), and rights. Examples of decommodification through rights are legal protection from fast-rising rents or eviction, both typical tenancy law instruments.
In housing, moreover, decommodification stands for the residents’ attempt to create strong social entitlements and for the citizens’ degree of immunization from market dependencies (Kadi & Ronald, 2014: 270). The central goal is “to provide every person with housing that is affordable, adequate in size and of decent quality, secure in tenure, and located in a supportive neighborhood of choice, with recognition of the special housing problems confronting oppressed groups” (Achtenberg & Marcuse, 1986: 476).
In reality and on the daily ground, residents often address such decommodification attempts through NIMBY (Not-in-my-backyard) opposition. They experience asymmetric distribution of power and a loss of social stability resulting in social exclusion, polarization, and gentrification (for discussion, e.g. Burbank et al., 2000; Dear, 1992; Kübler, 1995; Pendall, 1999; Scally & Tighe, 2015; Searle & Filion, 2011). This NIMBYism can take different forms, for example, street rallies, petitions, social movements, or neighborhood-wide objections against city (re)development, (re)vitalization, or upgrading projects (Holm & Kuhn, 2010; Peck & Tickell, 2002). But also practices of cooperation, mutual aid, solidarity, as well as horizontality, non-hierarchy, and equality. In critical urban geography literature, such resistance strategies are generally summarized under the umbrella term “right-to-the-city” movements (for discussion, e.g. Castells, 1977; Fainstein & Fainstein, 1985; Harvey, 1973, 2008; Lefebvre, 1970; Lowe, 1986; Mayer, 2003; Zukin, 1982). Residents participating in such movements particularly seek affordable housing provision, a decent standard of living, and/or protection against displacement or income inequality. Moreover, many of them aim to raise awareness that housing should not be considered a commodity but a source of basic need satisfaction upon which people depend absolutely (Hackworth & Smith, 2001; Scally & Tighe, 2015).
For example, many tenant activist groups have started to find cooperative housing associations that bought dwellings (or land) to build new homes. As collective owners, they are directly involved in the collective management of their homes with the freedom to physically modify their individual dwellings as they wish. Rents are set at a level necessary to service any debts incurred (cost rent principle) and build up an equity share in the property so that when a tenant leaves, they receive capital returns based on their share (Hodkinson, 2012). By removing the land and the housing stock from the private property market and controlling its use in perpetuity and mutuality, collective ownership becomes as attractive as individual home ownership. Any speculative and inflationary forces driving up the rents for the existing community can be stopped while any increase in value stays with the local community (Ward, 1974: 131). This overview of the literature indicates how tenants can develop effective resistance strategies to defend their own socially sustainable housing interests in dense city environments.
3.7 Hypotheses: Governance Mechanisms Leading to Socially Sustainable Housing Outcomes in Densifying Cities
The IRR analytical approach makes it possible to analyze in detail how institutional rules are used by different resource users and how they contribute to potential positive outcomes in terms of social sustainability in housing. Densification projects “that are ecologically viably, but socially not accepted as places in which to live, work or interact cannot be acknowledged sustainable” (Bramley et al., 2009: 2125). Given this potential for trade-offs among goals, a choice must be made as to which objectives should receive priority and hence greater weight in the densification process (Barbier, 1987: 104). However, these trade-offs are identified as the results of power games among actors. Densification objectives never get implemented on a one-to-one basis. Rather, power games influence the implementation process (e.g. Fainstein & Fainstein, 1979; Flyvbjerg, 1998; Friedmann, 1998).
By combining approaches from public policy analysis (planning as a public policy), and new institutional economics (property rights) with political ecology (power), this book enables to capture these power games among actors. Powerful actors are those who know how to influence the strategies and goals of other actors in a targeted manner to promote and protect their own values, needs, and objectives. By making explicit the governance mechanisms of possible sustainability trade-offs and power games in densification procedures, this research project contributes to neoinstitutionalist political ecology research. It recognizes that many different resource users can come into conflict with each other and allows for a systematic analysis of how various actors behave in response to a specific socio-political setting.
In the following paragraph, I formulate five broad working hypotheses on the local governance mechanisms contributing to socially sustainable housing in dense city areas (Fig. 3.2). I explain the power relations between actors involved in consolidation projects to understand the reasons for potential trade-offs between economic, environmental, and social dimensions. By nature, working hypotheses present a simplified statement about a complex reality. They are not to be “tested” in a quantitative manner (Gläser & Laudel, 2010); rather they are statements about possible causalities that guide and structure the research process.
The Institutional Resource Regime postulates a causal relationship (hypotheses 1–5) between three main variables: the condition of the housing- stock resource (dependent variable), actors (users) (intermediary variable), and institutions (independent variable) (Knoepfel et al., 2007; Gerber & Debrunner, 2022; Gerber et al., 2009, 2020: 157)
SQ1: How do institutional rules affect the outcomes of densification in terms of social sustainability in housing?
H1: Institutional Incoherence Between Landowners’ and Tenants’ Rights Prevents Social Sustainability in Housing
In the context of densification, the (Swiss) legal regime in force is not able to secure the provision of all goods and services provided by the housing stock (e.g. energy, capital investment, affordable living space). The policy shift towards densification has changed the balance of power between different users, particularly between landowners and tenants: while the business interests of owner-actors remain strongly protected by law (through property rights), tenants are not in the legal position to be heard even though the land use conditions have changed. This institutional incoherence between landowners’ and tenants’ rights leads to the neglect of tenants’ affordable housing needs while owners’ profitability objectives take the upper hand.
SQ2: What use strategies do actors (owners and non-owners) follow to contribute to socially sustainable housing in a densifying city?
H2: Resistance Power of Landowners Prevents Social Sustainability in Housing
In the context of densification, property owners (and the private real-estate industries working on their behalf) strategically activate their rights to private property to increase profit making. They use their rights to set the rents according to market prices and to increase the land rent. Furthermore, through a strategic coalition of political forces (in legislative and executive committees), they constantly prevent the formulation or introduction of more restrictive regulations that could potentially harm their profit interests in housing (re)development. Thereby, they divert the original intensions of densification policy objectives (green growth) by using the legal provisions to achieve goals other than those originally planned by the law (Eco-Business).
H3: Effective Tenants’ Grassroots Resistance Leads to Social Sustainability in Housing
Densification triggers residents’ grassroots resistance to social sustainability goals in housing as well as political and public debates on alternative densification models because tenants suffer the negative consequences of the process (rising rents, social exclusion). Tenants strategically participate to NIMBY-opposition (e.g. public rallies, legal objections, formal petitions) to increase the socio-political pressure on governments and owner-actors to obtain measures against dismissal and displacement (e.g. compensation payments, secure political support, reduction of local costs). If those entities do not agree to compromise with the tenants’ claims, landowners and public authorities riskthat densification as public policy objective as a whole will fail or come to a standstill because of tenants’ social resistance against and missing social acceptance for (re)development.
H4: Active Municipal Land Policy Strategy Leads to Social Sustainability in Housing
Densification forces municipal authorities to activate regulations and policy instruments that promote social sustainability goals in housing that are otherwise being put aside. Public-administrative actors are in the key position to strategically intervene in private development interests because land use planning alone is unable to control how owners use their land in the interest of the public. They can prevent tenants’ social exclusion, but they must therefore know how to densify. To do so, they need to act strategically and activate public and private law instruments, which do not always need to limit property owners’ rights (e.g. through zoning), but also work with property rights (e.g. through public land acquisition). All the finesse and strategic competencies of planning administrations is required to implement planning measures that promote social inclusion because landowners have the power to defend the status quo due to strong veto rights.
SQ3: How does the implementation of densification objectives impact socially sustainable housing outcomes?
H5: The Business of Densification
Densification—as a core objective of (Swiss) spatial planning policy—leads to the neglect of the social pillar of sustainability in housing because owner-actors have realized that the shift towards densification comes with real business opportunities rather than profit restrictions. Today, they acknowledge that densification is a profitable investment opportunity since more rent revenue can be realized at central locations through redevelopment and upgrading of existing stocks. Simultaneously, public authorities have started to promote the “Business of Densification” too since they have noticed that property owners—due to their strongly protected property title—are in a strong legal position to resist socially sustainable densification efforts. However, within this trade-off of densification objectives, the three sustainability dimensions fallout of balance. Powerful economic actors (including landowners, real-estate industries) and public authorities put social criteria (e.g. social mixing, tenure security) on the back burner, while economic and ecological criteria of densification become more prioritized.
Notes
- 1.
UN General Assembly (1948): Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Paris.
- 2.
In 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development published Our Common Future, also known as the Brundtland Report. So far, the commission has released the most popular definition of “sustainable development” by conceptualizing it as “development that meets the needs of the present withoutcompromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987: 43). Ever since, the meaning of the concept has been debated passionately. Even though the definition is no doubt,very clever, it is not necessarily the clearest. For instance, it does not adequately articulate the disaggregated branches of different functions of society and biosphere in a manner which, on the onehand, demonstrates their separate mechanisms and, on the other, reveals their integrating roles to constitute what is being termed sustainable development (Khan, 1995).
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Debrunner, G. (2024). The IRR Applied to Housing: Governing Densification for Socially Sustainable Housing Development. In: The Business of Densification. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-49014-9_3
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