Metropolitics

Visible Minorities, Visible Risk: Toronto's Unequal Eviction Burden

Prentiss Dantzler & Khalil Martin & Abigail Meza — 2025-09-16T05:00:00Z

In Toronto, who gets evicted isn't random—it follows the city's racial and economic divides. Canada's data practices hide crucial details about who is most at risk.
Evictions are a leading cause of housing insecurity in cities worldwide, disproportionately affecting lower-income households and non-white racialized groups. In Canada, although attention to evictions is growing, there is limited research available. As the most populous city in the country, Toronto is home to a diverse set of

- Essays / evictions, social class, poverty, housing, tenants, rental, rental housing, minorities, precarity, Canada, Toronto

Argentina: The Rental Issue in the Milei Era | Argentina: la problemática del alquiler en la era Milei

Nicolás A. Trivi — 2025-04-29T05:00:00Z

In Argentina, the reforms promoted by the libertarian government represent an offensive of capital on labor. Nicolás Trivi shows that the rental market is one of its battlefields.
---- Series: Horizons in the Housing Struggle ▼ Pulse aquí para leer en español ▼
On the night of December 20, 2023, President Javier Milei spoke on a nationally obligatory all-channel media event (the “cadena nacional”) to announce the proclamation of a Necessity and Urgency Decree (DNU in Spanish). The

- From the Field / Argentina, Latin America, South America, Global South, real estate, tenants, rent, rental, rental housing, Javier Milei

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

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

The Happy Few and the Unhappy Many: Endangered Artists in Global Cities

Boris Grésillon & translated by John Barrett — 2017-06-15T07:00:00Z

While participating or having participated in reshaping urban spaces, artists seem to be increasingly driven away from city centers due to steep rents and are forced move farther and farther from the heart of metropolises. Will the global contemporary city, like the mythical figure Cronus devouring his own children, exclude its artists? Boris Grésillon examines the dynamics at work in four metropolitan centers: New York, London, Tokyo, and Paris.
The global city (Sassen 1991) is predominantly

- Essays / gentrification, Paris, London, New York, art, downtown, city centre, Tokyo, rental, right to the city, artist, arts, rent, global cities

Precarity and Gentrification: A Feedback Loop

Samuel Stein — 2015-04-14T20:50:00Z

How do rent hikes and labor precarity conspire to reinforce each other against tenants and workers? Samuel Stein explains the mechanisms that link these two trends affecting citizens and calls for a tightening of rent-control laws to stop the spiraling descent of American residents into poverty.
Two of the most commonly discussed features of neoliberal capitalism are precarious labor and gentrified cities. As jobs become increasingly insecure, housing becomes impossibly expensive. Generally,

- Debates / gentrification, housing, rent control, rental, precarity, rent, rental housing

When Predator Becomes Prey: Rental Housing in Low-Income Minority Neighborhoods

Clément Théry — 2015-02-02T11:00:00Z

In the growing low-income rental market, predator and prey roles can shift, as landlords and tenants alike can fall victim to predatory cliques led by lawyers with local knowledge and a promise to help. Clément Théry's extensive research finds that affordable housing policy must recognize the threats low-income tenants face in the private market.
Most accounts of the rental housing market in low-income minority neighborhoods point to the role of major corporations with connections to

- From the Field / gentrification, ethnicity, housing, United States, New York, landlords, minorities, rental, poverty, race, housing crisis, insecurity, rent, rental housing

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

The Age of the Renter

Tony Roshan Samara — 2015-01-05T05:50:00Z

Not all Americans own their home. In fact, more and more of them rent it. More and more of them also end up paying a disproportionate amount of their income for shelter. Despite a system largely biased in favor of homeowners and widespread predatory practice against tenants, Tony Roshan Samara sees recent renters' mobilizations as an encouraging sign for many poor families throughout the USA.
The recession of 2004–2009 ushered in an era of sustained, structural inequality that is

- Debates / homeownership, housing, United States, rent control, rental, housing crisis, right to the city, rent, rental housing