From a culture of homeownership to generation rent: housing discourses of young adults in Spain

Across many advanced economies, changing housing dynamics have destabilized traditional adulthood transitions. This article examines how such transformations, especially in the aftermath of the economic crisis, affect fundamental societal expectations and aspirations surrounding tenure choices and home leaving. Through a series of discussion groups and interviews among young adults in Spain – a salient context of embedded homeownership culture – the study reveals how the crisis has undermined life-course transitions and upended discourses surrounding tenure norms. Homeownership has transformed from a dominant symbol of stability and security to one of dispossession and financial risk. Conversely, where pre-crisis discourses dismissed rental, the tenure is portrayed as providing more security in the face of necessary flexibility. Our research reveals that, although traditional ‘homeownership culture’ has not disappeared from the collective imaginary and appears nuanced by social class, it has become increasingly detached from leaving the parental home. The paper exposes the extent to which dominant housing discourses may be upended even within the context of a particularly embedded Southern European homeowner society. We contend that when housing dynamics are coupled with underlying transformations in aspirations and norms, there may be significant societal outcomes.This work was supported by Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, [grant number FPU14/ 02756]; MOVITRA IV Spanish National I+D+I Plan Subproject: RECSOC ‘Procesos de reconfiguración social metropolitana’ [grant number CSO2014-55780-C3-3-P]

The spatial polarization of housing wealth accumulation across Spain

Housing wealth is central to structuring inequalities across societies. Processes of financialization have intensified the speculative nature of housing, while labour and welfare restructuring increase the importance of property wealth towards economic security. Housing, however, represents an exceptional asset given its inherently spatial nature and buy-in barriers. This implies that not only access to homeownership but where households enter the housing market is central to wealth trajectories. Spatial inequality in housing trends thus fundamentally structures wealth dynamics. While some scholarship has posited increasing housing market spatial polarization, there remains a lack of empirical evidence. This research turns to the context of Spain, to directly assess spatial polarization in housing value accumulation. Employing an innovative dataset at a detailed geographic scale, the analyses reveal strong increases in polarization across the national territory over the past decade. Strikingly, these dynamics appear resistant to major upheavals, including the post-GFC crash and Covid-19 impacts, and are robust across scales. The analyses reveal that more expensive areas saw greater absolute gains and higher rates of appreciation. The findings expose a structural intensification of spatial polarization and provide crucial empirical evidence of how the housing market acts in amplifying inequality through the spatial sorting of wealth accumulation.Dutch Research Council under the grant ‘WEALTHSCAPES: The spatial polarization of housing markets and divided access to housing wealth accumulation’ [grant number: Vl.Veni.201S.031]Research Project ‘Multi-methodological Approach to Residential Behaviour and Everyday Life (MARBEL)’, code PID2020.119569GA.I00 funded by MCIN/ AEI /10.13039/50110001103

The end of mass homeownership? Changes in labour markets and housing tenure opportunities across Europe

With continued economic growth and expanding mortgage markets, until recently the pattern across advanced economies was of growing homeownership sectors. The Great Financial Crisis (GFC) has however, undercut this growth resulting in the contraction of homeownership access in many countries and the revival of private renting. This paper argues that these tenure changes are not solely a consequence of the GFC, and therefore, reversible once long-term growth returns. Rather, they are the consequences of more fundamental changes especially in labour markets. The very financialisation that fuelled the growth of homeownership has also led to a hollowing out of well-paid, secure jobs—exactly those that fit best with the taking of housing loans. We examine longer-term declines in labour market security across Europe from before the GFC, identifying an underlying correlation between deteriorated labour market conditions and homeownership access for young adults. While variations exist across European countries, there is evidence of common trends. We argue that the GFC both accelerated pre-existing labour insecurity dynamics and brought an end to offsetting such dynamics through the expansion of credit access with the likelihood of a return to an era of widespread homeownership growth starkly decreased

Using Remote Sensing to Analyse Net Land-Use Change from Conflicting Sustainability Policies: The Case of Amsterdam

In order to achieve the ambitious Sustainable Development Goal #11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), an integrative approach is necessary. Complex outcomes such as sustainable cities are the product of a range of policies and drivers that are sometimes at odds with each other. Yet, traditional policy assessments often focus on specific ambitions such as housing, green spaces, etc., and are blind to the consequences of policy interactions. This research proposes the use of remote sensing technologies to monitor and analyse the resultant effects of opposing urban policies. In particular, we will look at the conflicting policy goals in Amsterdam between the policy to densify, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, goals of protecting and improving urban green space. We conducted an analysis to detect changes in land-uses within the urban core of Amsterdam, using satellite images from 2003 and 2016. The results indeed show a decrease of green space and an increase in the built-up environment. In addition, we reveal strong fragmentation of green space, indicating that green space is increasingly available in smaller patches. These results illustrate that the urban green space policies of the municipality appear insufficient to mitigate the negative outcomes of the city’s densification on urban green space. Additionally, we demonstrate how remote sensing can be a valuable instrument in investigating the net consequences of policies and urban developments that would be difficult to monitor through traditional policy assessments

Equity Inequity: Housing Wealth Inequality, Inter and Intra-generational Divergences, and the Rise of Private Landlordism

There is much evidence of rising inequalities across advanced economies. This paper argues for the special position of housing equity in inequality dynamics while challenging a persistent “ideology of mass homeownership” as a widespread and equalizing mechanism of asset accumulation. Contemporary dynamics of diminished homeownership access contrast to the continued attractiveness of real estate among those with capital and recent growths in private landlordism. The research presents an explorative examination of the housing wealth dimension of inequality through the British case and assesses empirically the dimensions of: equity concentration, inter and intra-generational divergences, and the role of private landlordism. The research points to the starkly concentrated nature of housing equity and significant trends towards increasing disparities, with especially disadvantaged prospects among younger cohorts. The recent emergence of a substantial secondary rental-property market presents a further key dimension of wealth concentration. The research underscores the fundamental inequality of housing equity and brings into question rooted ideologies of housing-asset-based economic security in an era of individualized welfare responsibility

Divided access and the spatial polarization of housing wealth

Recent research has pointed to increasingly divided housing access across advanced economies. This reflects growing labor market inequality and rising intergenerational divides amplifying the importance of parental resources. At the same time, an increasing spatial polarization of housing markets has driven divergence between high-gain versus low-gain submarkets. This paper confronts how divided access to housing collides with growing spatial inequality in housing markets. The research turns to the Netherlands, drawing on full-population register data. First, GIS mapping exposes spatial polarization in house-value development. Second, household-level modeling demonstrates the impact of income, employment position and parental wealth in divided access to housing submarkets. Taken together, spatial polarization and differentiated access appear fundamental to driving inequalities in housing wealth accumulation