Metropolitics

Settling on the Financial Periphery: Alternative Housing Practices in Hegang, China

Yimeng Yang — 2025-06-17T05:00:00Z

Can valuing a home for its use value constitute a form of resistance to housing financialization? Considering the case of housing in Hegang, China, Yimeng Yang argues that the grassroots rejection of the logic of financialization is a form of resistance.
Hegang, a city in Northeast China known for its coal industry, rose to prominence during China's socialist era. It has faced economic stagnation, a population exodus, and plummeting housing prices over the past decade. This decline followed

- Essays / China, Hegang, Asia, financialization, real estate, housing, housing markets

Can the Market Solve Los Angeles' Housing and Homelessness Crisis?

Katherine Smock — 2025-02-27T06:00:00Z

Policymakers in Los Angeles hope that market-based solutions will solve the city's housing crisis. Data from the first years of the city's planning streamlining program show that inviting investment won't improve conditions for low-income renters.
---- Series: Horizons in the Housing Struggle The city of Los Angeles, like many cities across the US, is in dire need of much more affordable housing to alleviate and prevent homelessness. Despite the promise of alternative methods of creating

- Debates / United States, California, Los Angeles, homelessness, housing, housing crisis, housing markets, tenants

The Damage Inflicted by French Rent Controls between 1914 and 1948

Robert C. Ellickson & David Le Bris — 2019-02-26T06:00:00Z

In an essay in Metropolitics, Loïc Bonneval questioned the consensus among economists that strict rent controls have perverse effects. Bonneval based his analysis on a study of apartment buildings in Lyon between the two world wars. Robert Ellickson and David Le Bris challenge Bonneval's interpretation, and marshal evidence of the damage that rent controls inflicted in Lyon and France between 1914 and 1948.
In an article originally published in 2011 in Métropolitiques (in French) and recently

- Debates / rent, rent control, rental, rental housing, housing markets, housing policy, inequalities, Lyon, France, housing, housing crisis

Does Rent Control Prevent Investment in Real Estate?

Loïc Bonneval & translated by Oliver Waine — 2019-02-08T06:00:00Z

While rent-control measures kept private rental housing in France affordable for much of the 20th century, it has been massively rejected since the 1950s, on the grounds that it discourages investment in real estate. Here, Loïc Bonneval utilizes an unpublished historical survey to demonstrate the highly debatable nature of these criticisms—as rent control did not stop rental investment being profitable in the past.
The question of how to keep private-sector rents in check has become ever more

- Debates / France, housing, real estate, property, Lyon, rent control, rental, housing crisis, housing markets, rent, 20th century, 19th century, rental housing

Urban Shrinkage in France: An Invisible Issue?

Rémi Dormois & Sylvie Fol & translated by Oliver Waine — 2017-09-13T05:00:00Z

Although the phenomenon of urban shrinkage affects a significant number of French towns and cities, it is an issue that has so far been the subject of no real debate or dedicated policy at national level. A series of interviews with some of the actors involved in urban policy in France sheds light on the reasons for this long-standing “oversight” – and also reveals signs that “low-pressure housing markets” and devitalized town centres may finally be making it on to the political agenda.
----

- Essays / France, housing, housing policy, urban policy, urban renewal, deindustrialization, social housing, downtown, city centre, shrinking cities, urban decline, housing markets, urban shrinkage, devitalization, devitalization of town centres

The Actually Existing Markets of Shrinking Cities

Joshua Akers — 2017-04-18T05:00:00Z

In a bid to halt urban decline, Michigan's state government sought to create incentives for the creation of urban homesteads by accelerating the tax-foreclosure process. But what happens when city and county administrations don't play ball—and what are their motivations for doing so? Joshua Akers examines the adverse effects of a market-centric public policy.
---- Series: Shrinking Cities In the late 1990s, the state of Michigan bet on markets and urban pioneers to reinvigorate its struggling

- From the Field / housing, Chicago, housing policy, Los Angeles, real estate, public policy, foreclosure, Detroit, evictions, Michigan, shrinking cities, urban decline, urban homesteading, housing markets, Flint, homestead