A Politics of Housing Supply and Allocation: The Politics of Housing Policy during Oakland’s “Housing Crisis”

• In Event: 1451 - Community and Urban Sociology Section Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 3. Debating Gentrification

Abstract

In the summer of 2015, talk of the San Francisco Bay Area’s rising rents flooded local media, public political spaces, and academic commentary. Some praised the economic opportunity that accompanied the region’s growth, while others critiqued the impact rapid increases in housing costs have on current, disadvantaged residents. This paper argues that each of these settings simplify and mischaracterize the political struggles over housing as a politics of affordable housing, where two agents – “developers” and low-income tenants – struggle over the prioritization of two housing products: market-rate and “affordable” housing. Drawing on 15 months of participant observation at city council meetings, public events, and housing advocacy organizations in Oakland, CA, I argue that these struggles should be characterized as a politics of housing supply and allocation, where four agents are in conflict over the pursuit of two opposing interests: maximizing or curtailing profit, via two mechanisms: the supply of new or existing housing. First, I show how media portrayals of the struggles over the housing crisis have a counterpart in the political sphere and emerge from the structure of state housing departments, policy proposals, and narratives in this sphere. Then, through a systematic analysis of the positions and position-takings of agents in this political sphere, I illuminate four relationships of alliance and division among these agents. These political relationships highlight the need for investigations into the role of housing supply in the (re)production of inequality -- particularly the relationships between the state, housing providers, and housing consumers in the social world.

Author

• Allison Logan, University of California-Berkeley