Metropolitics

“Build Canada Homes” Will Fail Without Confronting Anti-Black Racism

Prentiss Dantzler — 2026-04-28T05:00:00Z

Canada's new housing agency risks repeating the same injustices that produced today's uneven housing crisis unless it embeds anti-racist frameworks in its development plans.
When the federal government launched Build Canada Homes (BCH) in the fall of 2025, it promised a bold solution to the housing shortage: build faster, build smarter, and finally close the supply gap. The urgency is clear. According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Canada must double new housing starts from

- Essays / housing, affordable housing, housing policy, racism, Canada, North America, housing crisis, inequalities

Dakar, Portrait of a Capital City

Armelle Choplin — 2025-09-12T05:00:00Z

Dakar, métamorphoses d'une capitale, by architects Carole Diop and Xavier Ricou, takes readers on a journey through the history of the Senegalese capital, from pre‑colonial Lebu villages to contemporary urban laboratory.
In their book Dakar, métamorphoses d'une capitale, Senegalese architects Carole Diop and Xavier Ricou present a masterful exploration of Dakar. Through meticulous archival research and iconography, the authors explore the lesser-known history of the former West African

- Reviews / Dakar, housing, history, housing policy, heritage, Africa, culture, urban planning, urban growth, West Africa, Senegal

Integration or Chainsaw: Some Reflections on the Policies of Cruelty in Milei's Argentina Based on the ReNaBaP Case | Integración o motosierra: Reflexiones sobre las políticas de crueldad en la Argentina de Milei a partir del caso ReNaBaP

Facundo A. Corti — 2025-05-20T05:00:00Z

Policy efforts in Argentina to reduce housing inequality have been met with Milei's chainsaw. Facundo A. Corti shows how the state has made the fight for housing equality a one-sided struggle.
---- Series: Horizons in the Housing Struggle ▼ Pulse aquí para leer en español ▼
The National Registry of Popular Neighborhoods (Registro Nacional de Barrios Populares, or ReNaBaP) was created in 2017 through Decree 358, which institutionalized a registry initiated the previous year by civil society

- From the Field / Argentina, Latin America, South America, Global South, housing, housing policy, informal housing, informal settlements, urban integration, Javier Milei, public policy, working-class neighborhoods

Horizons in the Housing Struggle

Jaime Jover & Kristen Hackett — 2025-02-14T06:00:00Z

We are living through a polycrisis, a multidimensional, interlinked series of capitalism's structural problems emerging worldwide. Unfolding genocides, wars and armed conflicts, Western democratic models in crisis and fascism on the rise, labor struggles increasing, climate change and related disasters growing, and the looming environmental collapse… The list is long and illustrates the ongoing and irresoluble conflict between capital and life. Even though it might not have attracted much

- Series / housing, right to housing, affordable housing, housing crisis, housing policy, housing justice, public housing, rental housing, social housing

When Rising Expectations Meet Rising Reaction: New York's 2024 Housing Policy Fight and the Prospects for the Future

Oksana Mironova & Samuel Stein — 2024-09-10T05:00:00Z

How did New York housing policy fare with Democratic control of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government? Oksana Mironova and Samuel Stein review the 2024 housing policy fight and the stakes going forward for the housing movement.
A few years ago, the New York tenant movement forced the state government to strengthen and expand its rent regulation system. This was the greatest expansion of renters' rights New York had seen in decades. In the years since, the movement has

- Debates / housing, real estate, real-estate industry, tenants, homelessness, New York, affordable housing, housing crisis, housing policy, housing justice, social housing

Regulating Basement Conversions in New York City

Ooha Uppalapati — 2023-07-14T05:00:00Z

Ooha Uppalapati examines the regulation of basement apartments in New York City and the implications of proposed laws for both homeowners and tenants.
On August 30, 2022, the Comptroller of New York City, Brad Lander, released a report titled Bringing Basement Apartments into the Light. The report, which lists recommendations for the provision of “basic rights, responsibilities, and protections of basement apartment residents and owners” (NYC Comptroller 2022) marked the one-year anniversary

- From the Field / housing, New York City housing policy, accessory dwelling units, housing policy, basements, New York

Changes in Contemporary Brazilian Housing Policy: The Dismantling of Social Housing and Grassroots Mobilization

Thalles Vichiato Breda — 2022-10-21T05:00:00Z

Thalles Vichiato Breda argues that since 2016, with the rise of right-wing governments in Brazil, the federal social-housing policy has been dismantled, resulting in increasing housing precariousness and making room for grassroots mobilization.
In 2014, roughly 80 families engaged in a land occupation on the outskirts of São Carlos, in São Paulo State in Brazil. The objective of the occupation was to put pressure on the local government so that the families could access the social-housing

- Debates / housing, social housing, Brazil, housing policy

The Second Coming of the Accessory Dwelling Unit

Joseph Weil Huennekens — 2021-10-26T05:00:00Z

Joseph Weil Huennekens discusses the history of accessory dwelling units (ADUs) in the context of housing in the suburbs, and argues that fair housing requires more than ADU legalization.
Planners and advocates have long promoted accessory dwelling units (ADUs) as a solution to the affordable housing crisis. According to proponents, ADUs are a low-impact way to unleash new production—a corrective to years of racist housing policy that have kept multifamily options out of the suburbs (Kazis

- Debates / urban planning, land-use planning, housing, housing policy, suburbs, accessory dwelling units, Long Island, New York

The Financialization of Rent-Regulated Housing in New York City after Rent Reform

Benjamin F. Teresa — 2020-12-04T06:00:00Z

In New York City, rent-controlled housing stock has been progressively deregulated over the last three decades, to the point where it is now wholly in the hands of financial investors. In this paper, Benjamin Teresa analyzes how tenants' associations have been fighting back against these landlords, who have let housing fall into disrepair while simultaneously hiking rents.
---- Series: Cities in the Age of Financialization In June of 2019, the New York State legislature stunned the

- From the Field / housing, right to housing, financialization, rent control, rent, tenants, New York, United States, activism, urban knowledge, public policy, housing policy

The Limits of the Accepted Orthodoxy on Rent Control

Loïc Bonneval & François Robert & translated by Oliver Waine — 2019-03-22T06:00:00Z

In response to a recent critique of their work, Loïc Bonneval and François Robert defend their method and results. In their view, not only should the idea of the unwanted effects of rent control be qualified, but the negative effects of the lack of regulation of the private rental market, which characterizes the current situation, should also be highlighted.
Robert C. Ellickson and David Le Bris's criticism of an article on rent control published in Métropolitiques in 2011 (and translated in

- Debates / rent, rent control, rental, rental housing, affordable housing, housing, housing crisis, housing policy, real estate, real-estate industry, history, France, Lyon