Housing has instead become one of the primary drivers of global capitalism, through commodification and financialization, making its function as real estate more important than its use as lived, space. It is the result of spatial developments being market-driven. Madden and Marcuse: “housing is not produced and distributed for dwelling at all,” but “as a commodity to enrich the few.” — Failed Architecture
The German documentary City for Sale that came out last year and the recently released book In Defense of Housing are the perfect match for anyone who wants to learn about the broken nature of housing markets, the crisis currently happening in all big cities worldwide.
City for Sale consists of interviews taken over a course of 4 years, where the author, Andreas Wilcke, accompanies real estate agents and investors during their daily routine and films tenants struggling to cope with the situation, providing the viewers with an opportunity to experience the turnaround of a whole city virtually at first hand.
In Defense of Housing by David Madden and Peter Marcuse, too, is full of examples from both sides of the story, where personal property are examined as both categories–shelter, safety, identity for the general population versus investment and a supplemental source of income for the lucky few. The book also demonstrates examples of numerous cities and countries, detailing destructive housing policies and describing chilling stories of people on the losing end of the game, where the growing perception and purpose of housing as real estate exacerbates both inequality and individual personal crisis.
The documentary City for Sale will be screened at the Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam, which takes place from 4 to 8 October 2017. The programme can be found online.
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