State-led Gentrification and the Changing Geography of Market-oriented Housing Policies

Governments in a wide range of contexts have long pursued policies of social mixing to disperse poverty concentrations, attract middle class residents, and manage disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Drawing on longitudinal and spatial housing data for the case of Amsterdam, this paper shows that the dominant instruments to facilitate social mixing have changed over time. Policy focus has shifted from large-scale urban renewal projects and the demolition of social rental housing to the sale of existing social rental dwellings. The changing nature of tenure restructuring also brings about a changing geography: while urban renewal was mostly concentrated in post-war neighbourhoods of socio-economic decline, social housing sales are increasingly concentrated in inner city neighbourhoods where already existing gentrification processes are amplified. These shifts need to be considered within their wider policy context. Local policies increasingly focus on catering to the preferences of middle class households, while welfare state restructuring and national austerity measures push policies that cut back on social rental housing. Thus, this paper demonstrates that the demise of social rent has accelerated under conditions of market-oriented housing restructuring, and increasingly occurs in high demand neighbourhoods where current housing policies push gentrification.