Auteur: Bosma, J. (2021)
Collection
(15)
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Article
WPS No.49: Platformed professionalization - Labour, assets, and earning a livelihood through AirBnB
This paper analyses processes of professionalization on Airbnb in Berlin, exploring who is able to take part successfully in urban value creation processes facilitated by short-term rental platforms. In doing so, it intervenes in debates on platform urbanism that focus on the role of digital platforms in reconfiguring urban governance and livelihoods.
Combining a political economic approach and affordance theory, I conceptualize professionalization as a particular platform logic that benefits Airbnb and hosts who are able to take part, while reinforcing existing inequalities. Drawing on eight months of fieldwork in Berlin, I show how these professionalization practices differentially affect the strategies and practices of hosts, offering benefits to some while worsening the position of others who are unable or unwilling to professionalize. As such, professionalization processes produce inequalities and power asymmetries both on and off the platform, between hosts as well as between the platform owner, platform users, and non-platform users. In a context where a growing number of city-dwellers rely on platforms to generate their livelihoods, such power shifts resulting from programmatic platform dynamics have a significant impact on who is able to benefit from platformization and thrive in a platform society. -
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WPS No.48: From Instagram posts to Eastside clothes Social media and the amplification of gentrification in Amsterdam
In this working paper, Irene Bronsvoort and Justus Uitermark use their detailed case study of a shopping street to show how social media are implicated in gentrification.
As digital platforms are woven into urban life, they increasingly mediate the urban experience and shape urban change. Here we examine how representations on digital platforms reflect and shape urban change. Which groups produce and share these representations? What places do they picture? What are their aesthetic registers and norms? And what are the material consequences of these representations?
Elaborating the concept of ‘discursive investing’ introduced by Zukin, Lindeman and Hurson (2017), we address these questions in a case study of Javastraat, a shopping street in a gentrifying neighbourhood in Amsterdam East. On the basis of an analysis of Instagram posts, street observations and interviews, we show that gentrifiers use social media to express elective belonging and aspirational consumption. As a result of their efforts to express their identity and boost their status, the gentrifiers’ posts serve as advertisements for the recently opened establishments that cater to gentrifiers. Meanwhile, other establishments are largely absent from digital platforms, with the notable exception of a number of shops that changed their aesthetic to appeal to gentrifiers.Bronsvoort, I. & Uitermark, J. (2020)
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WPS 34: The revival of the private rental sector under Amsterdam’s regulated marketization regime
Over the last decade or so, private rental sectors have been in ascendance across developed societies, especially in economically- liberal, English speaking contexts. The Netherlands too, and Amsterdam in particular, have also more recently experienced a century long decline in private renting reversed. More unusually, the expansion of private renting in Amsterdam has been explicitly promoted by the municipal government, and in cooperation of social housing providers, in response to decreasing accessibility to, and affordability of, social rental and owner occupied housing. This paper explores how and why this state- orchestrated revival has come about, highlighting how new growth in free market private renting is related to the restructuring of the urban housing market around owner-occupation since the 1990s. More critically, our analysis asserts that restructuring ofAmsterdam’s housing stock can be conceptualized as regulated marketization. Market forces are not being simply unleashed, but given more leeway and are matched by new regulations. We also demonstrate various tensions present in this process of regulated marketization; between national and local politics, between existing housing and new construction, and between policies implemented in different time-periods.
C. Hochstenbach en R. Ronald (2018)
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WPS 33: The making of a responsive city
This Working Paper explores the material politics of the “responsive city.” This politics imbues urban objects that are made “smart” with responsive sensors, with the capacity to negotiate the multitude of interests that make up contemporary urban life in a frictionless way.
This article explores the material politics of what I refer to as the “responsive city.” This politics imbues urban objects that are made “smart” with responsive sensors, with the capacity to negotiate the multitude of interests that make up contemporary urban life in a frictionless way. The article attends closely at the unfolding of the Smart Light project undertaken by the Amsterdam Smart City network at the Hoekenrodeplein in Amsterdam Southeast. This project envisioned the “smartening up” of lampposts at this square by means of real-time sensors responding to local cues with different light settings. Bringing together many different interests, institutional cultures, temporal and spatial settings and technological standards, the Smart Light project negotiated different techno-political genealogies and, consequently, different ways in which smart urban objects come to matter politically. Being simultaneously invested with a progressive politics of local revitalization and with an entrepreneurial politics of global economic competition, the project integrated two different ways in which the smart lampposts were understood to be “responsive.” After detailing both these ways, I argue that the Smart Light project came with an overarching anti-political attitude. It created a context in which the discrepancies, frictions and tensions between both the political spheres in which the project unfolded, remained unaccountable to one another.D. Zandbergen (2018)
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WPS 31: Shifting regional dynamics of life course
The geographical literature on life course holds that household mobility is a key mechanism to accommodate life-course transitions. Some transitions require at least one move (e.g. coupling or separating). As such the ability and conditions under which individuals are able to make these transitions, are highly contingent on housing market structures. The affordability and accessibility of housing does not only structure mobility but also the opportunities for life course transitions – as well as their spatiality. Recent cycles of housing booms and busts in West European and North American urban regions suggest that these regional demographic processes have been subject to change. Particularly the decrease in mobility rates in times of crises might suggest that individuals postpone transition-related moves.
This paper seeks to gain insight in how housing market conditions affect the regional geography of life course dynamics. It investigates key transitions in household formation and dissolution in the Amsterdam region before, during and after the housing crisis of 2008. We find that, in contrast to expectations, mobility-related life-course transitions have not been affected by the crisis. Mobility rates among ‘stable’ households do show a decline though. However, we see changes between rental and ownership markets, as well as changes in the geography of life-course transitions.C. Hochstenbach, W. van Gent en S. Musterd (2018)
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WPS 30: Right-wing populism and xenophobia
This paper challenges the idea that there is currently a geographical, political dichotomy between cities and the periphery: the city is supposed to represent the tolerant vote while the periphery is portrayed as more prone to populism and xenophobia.
Authors: Yannis Tzaninis, Willem Boterman, Manolis Pratsinakis
By focusing on the Netherlands, this paper challenges this dichotomous thinking in two ways. Initially we argue that in the long run voting behaviour patterns in the Netherlands have diversified in city and suburb in accordance to demographic diversification. This observation points to voting being consistent even when people change spaces. Second, we discuss the relation between voting behaviour and issues of ethnic co-existence in depth by looking at residents of urban and suburban spaces. We show that (anti)immigration discourses and practices among the white Dutch liberal voters stay relatively constant in city and periphery.
Download the full paper on the CUS website.
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WPS 29: The age dimensions of urban change and socio-spatial inequality
Age is not very often explicitly integrated into analyses of urban socio-spatial inequality. This working paper by Cody Hochstenbach makes an effort to do so, and shows how this helps us understand how gentrification progresses over time, takes on new forms and expands into areas previously left untouched.
Author: Cody Hochstenbach
Contemporary societal transformations are marked by particular age dynamics and shifting fault lines between generations. Growing divides between young and old have been signaled out as a key concern, for example on the housing market where especially the young struggle to acquire secure housing. Such age relations may also play an important role in broader socio- spatial changes in cities. However, age is not very often explicitly integrated into analyses of urban socio-spatial inequality. This paper makes an effort to do so, drawing on the case of Amsterdam (The Netherlands). First, by placing age center stage, it shows how aggregate urban upgrading comes about. Some age groups drive urban upgrading more than others, while still other age groups have become poorer, dampening upgrading. Second, geographies of affluence and poverty differ substantially between age groups. While affluent elderly concentrate in the most privileged areas, and increasingly so, younger generations move to neighborhoods lower on the urban hierarchy. Third, at any one point multiple generations are involved in driving neighborhood gentrification. An explicit incorporation of age dynamics thus help us understand how gentrification progresses over time, takes on new forms and expands into areas previously left untouched.
This paper has now been published in the journal Population, Space and Place (open access).
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WPS 26: A new politics of mobility: Commoning movement, meaning and practice in Amsterdam and Santiago
The paper focuses on recent theorisations of the commons and sharing practices that have gained traction in geographic and urban studies literatures. Drawing on global comparative research on low-carbon mobility transitions, this paper argues that critical mobilities scholars can rethink and expand the understanding of mobility through engagement with commons thinking. Moreover, it develops a new concept, ‘commoning mobility’, that can help realise fairer and greener mobilities and more inclusive, collaboratively governed cities.
Nikolaeva, A., Adey, P., Cresswell, T., Lee, J. Y., Novoa, A., & Temenos, C. (2017). A new politics of mobility: Commoning movement, meaning and practice in Amsterdam and Santiago. (CUS Working Paper Series; No. 26). Amsterdam: Centre for Urban Studies, University of Amsterdam.
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WPS 24: Cargo bikes as a lens for gender, class and urban transformation in Amsterdam
In Dutch inner-cities, like Amsterdam, ‘cargo bikes’ have become a popular mode of transport for urban families. Remarkably, the cargo bike has become a highly contested object in both public space and public discourse. This paper uses the cargo bike as a lens to discuss the transformations of urban space from the perspective of class and gender. Based on a qualitative content analysis of national newspapers it argues that the cargo bike has become a symbol of the interdependence of specific residential, employment, consumption and mobility practices.
Cargo-bike drivers are portrayed as ‘yuppies’ or ‘elitist’, related to their class position; and described in terms of specific gender roles: cargo-bike mothers are described as career-focused mothers who are assertive and self-confident, while cargo-bike dads are portrayed as ‘soft’ yet also emancipated. These labels attest to the different expectations and normativities around being a ‘good’ mother or father, particularly within the context of urban space. This paper concludes that the cargo bike is a symbol of the way in which middle-class mothers and fathers challenge and negotiate these dominant norms around parenthood, who are thereby remaking the city.W. Boterman (2017)
Dit working paper is reeds (open access) gepubliceerd. Klik hier voor een link naar het artikel.
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WPS 22: State-sponsored gentrification or social regeneration?
This paper discusses state interventions in a poor former-working-class area in Amsterdam – Van der Pekbuurt.
Even though the residents have been successful in resisting redevelopment and renovation plans, state and housing association continue their efforts to change the area through symbolic politics. By introducing and facilitating cultural entrepreneurs and artists in the area - as part of regeneration and gentrification strategies -, the representation of what the neighborhood is, and ought to be, gravitates towards the planners’ future vision. As such, these representations undermine the legitimacy of long-term residents. Interviews with residents reveal that the change in the neighborhood instill a sense of loss of place, exacerbated by cuts in local service provision.W. van Gent, W. Boterman en M. Hoekstra (2016)
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WPS 20: The changing geography of tenure restructuring and state-led gentrification in Amsterdam
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.
C. Hochstenbach (2016)
Dit working paper is reeds gepubliceerd. Klik hier voor een link naar het gepubliceerde artikel.
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WPS 19: The Unraveling of Amsterdam’s Unitary Rental Market
The Netherlands has traditionally been considered an iconic ‘unitary’ rental housing market in which social and private sectors directly compete. More recently however, this unitary market has been undermined by changes in the status of housing associations, the privatization of social housing stock and the promotion of home ownership. It has subsequently been suggested that the Netherlands is drifting toward a ‘dualist’ system in which social and private sectors are critically unequal. This paper takes on this claim, providing, on the one hand, palpable evidence of the waning influence of the unitary housing system in the Netherlands and, on the other, a deeper examination of processes of dualisation as well as the outcomes. We focus on Amsterdam, where housing privatization has been most intense. We specifically draw on a geospatial analysis of changing tenure distributions at the neighbourhood level as well as a household analysis of the shifting profile of tenants and home owners to show how the unitary rental market, which helped establish Amsterdam as an iconic ‘just city’, has been unraveling. We demonstrate the relevance of the unitary/dualist model to understanding contemporary urban processes, especially those featuring social and economic polarization.
R.J. van Duijne en R. Ronald (2018)
Dit artikel is reeds (open access) gepubliceerd. Klik hier voor een link naar het hele artikel.
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WPS 17: Changing urban geographies through boom and bust periods: gentrification and the suburbanization of poverty
Many postindustrial cities across Europe and other contexts are marked by growing social–spatial inequalities, housing liberalization, and gentrification, which limit the housing options of low-income households. We investigated changes in the residential moves of different low-income households (working poor, low-to-middle income, and unemployed) in the Amsterdam and Rotterdam urban regions for the time period 2004–2013. We found an overarching trend for the suburbanization of poverty toward the urban peripheries and surrounding regions. While this trend appears to be relatively crisis resistant in the tight Amsterdam housing context, it is more cyclical in Rotterdam and has slowed following the global financial crisis. Low-to-middle income and unemployed households are increasingly moving to the urban regions surrounding cities, particularly to higher density satellite towns. Nevertheless, a growing number of working poor households remain highly urbanized, employing various coping strategies to acquire housing. This paper reveals how the suburbanization of poverty is both a direct process of poor households moving from city to suburb, and a broader indirect process caused by exclusionary mechanisms such as the decreasing accessibility and affordability of inner-urban neighborhoods, which reflect broader changes in the geography and socioeconomic patterning of urban regions.
C. Hochstenbach en S. Musterd (2016).
Dit working paper is reeds gepubliceerd. Klik hier voor een link naar het gepubliceerde artikel.
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WPS 10: An anatomy of gentrification; understanding neighbourhood upgrading beyond migration
Several theoretical debates in gentrification literature deal with the role and importance of migration, in situ social mobility, and demographic change in urban social change. These debates focus primarily on structural processes. However, we have comparatively little insight into how and to what degree different mechanisms actually underpin upgrading in urban neighbourhoods. This paper uses Dutch register data to show how residential mobility, social mobility, and demographic change each contribute to gentrification in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. First, our findings show that residential mobility remains key to understanding the growth of higher-income residents in gentrifiying neighbourhoods. At the same time, social mobility and demographic change— notably ageing—are most important in explaining dwindling numbers of lower-income residents. Second, large differences exist across neighbourhoods. By mapping three idealtypical drivers of gentrification, we show how the migration-based ‘displacement model’ occurs predominantly in upgrading neighbourhoods with a high status. Conversely, in low-status upgrading neighbourhoods social mobility is more important in explaining gentrification. These different forms of upgrading occur simultaneously in both cities and should be integrated to advance our understanding of gentrification as a process that is both widespread and occurs in different, ever-changing forms across neighbourhoods.
C. Hochstenbach en W. van Gent (2015)
Dit working paper is reeds gepubliceerd. Klik hier voor de link naar het gepubliceerde artikel.
