Who owns our cities? Differences between large and small-scale landlords in the eviction process

• In Event: 1451 - Community and Urban Sociology Section Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 12. Other Urban Issues

Abstract

To understand a city, we must analyze its most powerful stakeholders, central among them the owners of city land. However, urban sociologists have rarely made landlords the focus of empirical work, and we lack an understanding of who owns our cities, as well as how differences in their internal characteristics relate to differences in their management behaviors. This paper draws on over three million tax assessments, corporate directories, and land records to create a detailed census of the owners of rental properties in Boston, Massachusetts, between 2004 and 2018. Descriptive analyses reveal that the rental market is largely decentralized, with the majority of units owned by landlords with fewer than ten total units. Connecting this ownership data to records of evictions, renovations, and housing complaints, I find that different types of landlords manage their properties in distinct ways: Small-scale landlords evict less often, invest more in their properties, and have fewer housing complaints compared to large-scale owners. However, amateur landlords also have higher rates of legal and interpersonal conflict during the eviction process, suggesting that the informal way in which they manage their properties has downsides. This article advances research on the political economy of cities by documenting the ownership structure of one municipality and showing how that configuration affects its built environment and social life.

Author

• Henry Gomory, Princeton University