Metropolitics

A Social Portrait of the Subprime Crisis

Camille François & translated by Oliver Waine — 2021-05-14T05:00:00Z

What have been the social and urban consequences of the subprime mortgage crisis, and what lessons can be learned and applied to the current health and economic crisis? Isaac Martin and Christopher Niedt's 2015 work, Foreclosed America, paints a sociological portrait of households evicted from their homes in the United States.
The economic consequences of the Covid‑19 pandemic invite comparisons with previous global economic crises, not least the recent subprime crisis. This crisis, which

- Reviews / subprime, crisis, financial crisis, housing crisis, Covid-19, coronavirus, pandemic, United States, foreclosure, evictions, inequalities

Contemporary Housing Struggles: Crises, Activism, and Critical Research

Joshua Akers — 2021-03-12T07:00:00Z

In this series, Metropolitics focuses on the intersection of organizing, technology, politics, and policy in urban rental housing struggles. It seeks to place the increasing salience of contemporary housing struggles in the context of the transformation of urban housing markets following the financial crisis and the additional precarity induced by Covid‑19.
---- ▼ Jump to the list of articles ▼ The US federal eviction moratorium will expire at the end of March. The original moratorium, issued

- Series / housing, activism, community organizing, Covid-19, crisis, financial crisis, housing crisis, coronavirus

Dawn of the Indebted: Zombie Neoliberalism Hits the Big Screen

Desiree Fields & Tom Gillespie — 2016-03-08T06:00:00Z

As the tremors of the 2008 crumbling US housing market were felt around the world, even the most astute couldn't have predicted that its backstory would be adapted into not one but two Hollywood features. Desiree Fields and Tom Gillespie review The Big Short and 99 Homes—two films depicting landscapes where not even the winners of the game believe in it anymore.
Around the world, the US subprime mortgage market is understood as the epicenter of the near-implosion of the global economy in

- Reviews / financial crisis, housing, real estate, crisis, foreclosure, subprime, Wall Street, film, documentary

Interrupting Inequality: Crisis and Opportunity in Low-Income Housing Policy

Susan Saegert — 2015-01-26T05:50:00Z

Inequality in the United States is deeply rooted in issues of property ownership, wealth, race and class. Lower-income and minority households in the United States are constantly challenged in their struggle for decent stable housing by unaffordability and insecurity, exacerbated by the twin foreclosure and financial crises and its aftermath. Community land trusts seem to offer an alternative that can interrupt the cycle of crisis for both households and communities.
Inequality, property and

- Debates / homeownership, financial crisis, housing, housing policy, inequalities, United States, land, New York, crisis, rental, foreclosure, housing crisis, community land trusts, rent, rental housing, affordable housing

Finance as a New Terrain for Progressive Urban Politics

Desiree Fields — 2014-11-06T05:55:00Z

Since the foreclosure crisis, inequalities have only deepened in the US, with most wealth accruing to the 1%. Desiree Fields offers critical insights into what a progressive political countermovement that centers a narrative of finance with its thumb on the scale might look like.
The countermovement that wasn't
Many people, including me, believed that the global financial crisis that started in the US mortgage market signaled an unmistakable opening. Being so tightly linked to financial

- Debates / financial crisis, housing, inequalities, social movement, United States, crisis, rental, finance, foreclosure, progressive urban politics, rent, rental housing

Access to home-ownership: what are the effects of the economic crisis?

Bernard Vorms & translated by Oliver Waine — 2011-04-20T06:30:00Z

A 70% home-ownership rate? This is the stated objective of the reform that has recently come into effect in France, even though the effects of the global financial crisis are still being felt. However, an analysis of the property situation in France puts both the risks of a policy encouraging property ownership and the challenges of the reform into perspective.
It is something of an understatement to say that the recent worldwide crisis has changed the context in which public policies

- Debates / homeownership, home-buying, financial crisis, housing, crisis

Towards a regional democracy?

Frédéric Dufaux & Edward W. Soja — 2011-03-09T06:30:00Z

To achieve a better democracy, Edward Soja defends the idea that we need to change the way we think about the social and political organization of urbanized territorries. He suggest that we now need to consider City-Regions instead of metropolises if we want to overcome the challenges raised both by a continuous urbanizing process and by repeated financial crises.
---- Dossier : Penser la ville avec Marx Postmetropolis, the crises and a new regional model of urbanization
Frederic Dufaux:

- Interviews / financial crisis, governance, democracy, urban region, crisis, video

The Geography of Financial Crisis

David Harvey & Nadine Roudil & Stéphane Tonnelat — 2010-12-22T09:07:40Z

David Harvey is a leading figure of the marxist critique of neoliberalism. During his last stay in France, in October 2010, he answered a few quick questions on his relationship to Paris, on the geography of the financial crisis and on Utopia and social movements.
---- Dossier : Penser la ville avec Marx Video 1: Space, Marx and Paris Duration: 3:26 Question 1: You propose a spatial reading of Marx's critique of capitalism. Could you tell us how his work has helped you elaborate your own

- Interviews / Marx, financial crisis, utopia, crisis, video