The financialisation of rental housing: A comparative analysis of New York City and Berlin

This paper compares how recent waves of private equity real estate investment have reshaped the rental housing markets in New York and Berlin. Through secondary analysis of separate primary research projects, we explore financialisation’s impact on tenants, neighbourhoods, and urban space. Despite their contrasting market contexts and investor strategies, financialisation heightened existing inequalities in housing affordability and stability, and rearranged spaces of abandonment and gentrification in both cities. Conversely cities themselves also shaped the process of financialisation, with weakened rental protections providing an opening to transform affordable housing into a new global asset class. We also show how financialisation’s adaptability in the face of changing market conditions entails ongoing, but shifting processes of uneven development. Comparative studies of financialisation can help highlight geographically disparate, but similar exposures to this global process, thus contributing to a critical urban politics of finance that crosses boundaries of space, sector and scale

Altered beta(2)-adrenergic regulation of T cell activity after allergen challenge in asthma

Background Airway inflammation in asthma is orchestrated by recruitment of T helper (Th)2 lymphocytes to the lung and subsequent production of Th2-like cytokines upon allergen challenge. Objective To examine whether allergen-induced dysfunction of the beta(2)-adrenergic receptor (beta(2)-AR) contributes to the enhanced T(h2) cell activity in asthma. Methods beta(2)-adrenergic regulation of cytokine mRNA expression was studied in alpha-CD3/alpha-CD28-activated peripheral blood lymphocytes from seven asthma patients before and 6 h after allergen challenge, in conjunction with the effects of beta(2)-agonist fenoterol on T cell chemotaxis and signalling pathways. Results A complete loss of beta(2)-AR control over expression of the Th2 cytokines IL-4, IL-5 and IL-13, but not of the Th1 cytokine IFN-gamma, was observed after allergen challenge. Furthermore, we found impaired beta(2)-AR regulation of T cell migration as well as signal transduction pathways, i.e. the phosphorylation of cyclic adenosine monophosphate-responsive element binding protein and the inhibition of the mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway. The loss of beta(2)-AR control was associated with increased beta-adrenergic receptor kinase expression, which might be involved in beta(2)-AR desensitization. In addition, we demonstrate for the first time that T cells exposed to the chemokine thymus and activation-regulated chemokine show hyporesponsiveness to fenoterol. Conclusion Our results suggest that allergen-induced loss of beta(2)-AR control, possibly mediated by chemokine release, plays an important role in enhanced Th2-like activity in asthma