The Politics of Property: Heterogeneous Approaches to Rental Housing Governance

• In Event: Community and Urban Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 3: Housing Policy

Abstract

The United States is experiencing a housing crisis: half of all renter households are cost burdened, the housing stock is deteriorating, and homelessness has reached an all-time high. Although municipalities have expanded protections for vulnerable households, the provision of rental housing ultimately remains dependent on a diffuse field of private, profit-motivated actors. As states pursue increasingly regulatory and redistributive reforms, it is crucial to understand how supply-side actors respond and shape the governance of rental housing. To this effect, I ask: How do rental housing providers frame and navigate the politics of rental housing? How do their perceived relationships to city and state government shape their political behavior and rental practices?
Drawing on interviews with landlords, developers, and government officials in Massachusetts, I identify stark differences in rental housing providers’ relationships to the state. Whereas developers expressed confidence in government and an ability to influence policy, landlords described political estrangement and distrust in state institutions. In line with existing research, I find that landlords attempt to minimize contact with regulatory bodies through practices like informal eviction, discrimination, disinvestment from low-end rental markets. While prior research offers a primarily economic explanation for these behaviors, my findings reveal the political and cultural motivations underlying landlord resistance. Trust in government may therefore be a central yet overlooked factor shaping resistance to redistributive housing reforms. By foregrounding heterogeneity among rental housing providers and moving beyond strictly economic explanations of landlord behavior, this project advances a more relational account of urban governance and illuminates the tensions inherent in the neoliberal political economy.

Author

• Kseniya Dzhala, Harvard University