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ANNUAL
REVIEWS Further Housing: Commodity
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Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2013.39:509-531. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

Department of Sociology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208;

email: [email protected]

Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2013. 39:509–31 Keywords

The Annual Review of Sociology is online at
http://soc.annualreviews.org mortgages, property values, affordable housing, tenant activism, public
housing
This article’s doi:
10.1146/annurev-soc-071312-145611
Abstract
Copyright  c 2013 by Annual Reviews.
All rights reserved The study of housing has a long history in sociology, but since the
1960s, it has been relatively hidden in a number of sociological subfields
and scattered across a range of disciplines. The financial crisis of 2008
elevated housing issues to the level of national and international debate
and protest, and it offers a framework for organizing the scholarship on
housing into that which studies housing as a commodity, on one hand,
and as a right, on the other. In the former category, I review the literature
on mortgage financing; property values and wealth; and affordable rental
housing, foreclosures, and evictions. In the latter category, I discuss the
theoretical arguments for a right to housing and review the research on
activist demands for that right. The tension between these two aspects
of housing is discussed throughout. I conclude by proposing the actual
home or apartment as a productive area for new sociological analysis.

509
 SO39CH25-Pattillo ARI 26 June 2013 16:7

INTRODUCTION sold, the distribution of various social groups

across collections of houses in neighborhoods,
In a relatively pithy sentence for his otherwise
and the local, national, and supranational
lyrical style, W.E.B. Du Bois captured a wealth
policy regimes that define responsibilities (or
of meaning when he wrote, “The size and
lack thereof ) to provide housing. Sociologists
arrangements of a people’s homes are no unfair
are more likely to study housing as and in
index of their condition” (Du Bois 1903 [2007],
context than to study it as a commodity or a
p. 95). The size of a home is straightforward,
right. Reviews of this former literature already
but Du Bois’s reference to “arrangements”
exist insofar as the topic of housing is subsumed
opens up a much richer set of sociological
under the study of households and families
concerns. In his own exegesis of the term, based
(Leventhal & Newman 2010, Newman 2008),
on research on the living conditions of African
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schools (DeLuca & Dayton 2009, Johnson

Americans in 1890s rural Georgia, Du Bois
2006), and especially residential discrimination
described furnishings, facilities, crowding, and
(Pager & Shepherd 2008, Quillian 2006, Reskin
Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2013.39:509-531. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

housekeeping interior to homes; the relation-

2012), residential segregation (Charles 2003,
ship between black laborers and white landlords
Massey 2005, Pattillo 2005), and neighbor-
as arrangements of class and race; the location
hoods (Ellen et al. 2001, Galster 2012, Ludwig
of “Negro” homes in space, “standing in the
et al. 2008, Sampson et al. 2002). Hence, these
shadow of the Big House” (p. 95); and how poor
topics are not reviewed here; nor is research
housing conditions affected daily routines, fam-
on cohabitation, overcrowding, multi-family
ily life, and mobility and migration patterns.
households (especially in immigrant communi-
Du Bois’s assertion that people’s homes are an
ties), boomerang adult children who return to
“index of their condition” identifies housing
their parents’ basements, and the increase in liv-
outcomes as a measure of social stratification,
ing alone, just to name a few current and salient
above and beyond individual-level character-
housing-related topics. Although these are all
istics. Hence, Du Bois’s word “arrangements”
important areas of study, the political economy
stands in for an assortment of physical, spatial,
and materiality of, and human need for, hous-
social, political, economic, and symbolic forces
ing merit particular attention at this historical
that are manifested through an analysis of
moment.
homes and housing, and sociologists and
Early American sociology had a keen inter-
others have taken up this wide array of topics in
est in the material characteristics of housing.
their research. In light of the financial crisis of
Along with Du Bois’s research in Georgia cited
2008 and the ensuing recession, both of which
above, The Philadelphia Negro included a de-
elevated some housing issues to national and
tailed assessment of the “houses and rent” in the
international debate and protest, I focus this
Seventh Ward (Du Bois 1899 [1996]). The ur-
review on the study of housing as a commodity,
ban surveys of Charles Booth (1891) in London
on one hand, and as a right, on the other.
and Jane Addams (1895) in Chicago were driven
Although I privilege the research on hous-
largely by their observations of (and interests
ing by sociologists and in sociological journals,
in improving) poor housing conditions in
other fields are perhaps even more active in
sections of their respective cities. A particularly
this area of research. Indeed, the study of
rich inquiry into housing conditions, published
housing, per se, is somewhat secondary to what
in the American Journal of Sociology in the
many sociologists focus on because homes
1910s, was carried out completely by women
and apartments are first and foremost physical
scholars. These women—Natalie Walker,
entities, not social relationships or institutions.
Edith Abbott, Alzada Comstock, Helen Wil-
Sociologists are frequently more interested in
son, and Sophonsiba Breckinridge, to name
the functioning of households inside of homes,
a few—were students in various departments
the markets in which housing is bought and

510 Pattillo
 SO39CH25-Pattillo ARI 26 June 2013 16:7

at the University of Chicago.1 The ten-article Although these books described the phys-
series on “Chicago Housing Conditions” ical characteristics of homes and apartments
covered several ethnic groups and parts of in the communities studied, this era also
the city. In article VII of the series, entitled marked a clear move in sociology away from
“Two Italian Districts,” author Grace Norton the study of housing (its design, age, physical
(1913) included photographs of the interiors character, affordability, consumption, etc.)
and exteriors of homes, along with numerous and toward the study of neighborhoods and
tables describing the heights of buildings, lot the social interactions that are codetermined
sizes, median rents by ethnic group, charac- by where people live—family life, leisure
teristics of families and lodgers, persons per time, crime, schools, political representation,
room by cubic feet, and years of residence churches, etc. After the 1960s, the emphasis on
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by tenure status. The observational methods housing qua housing began to decline in soci-
and meticulous measurement displayed in this ology. A JSTOR search of the American Journal
early research no doubt contributed to later, of Sociology shows that the word “housing”
Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2013.39:509-531. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

more well-known Chicago School studies of appeared in the titles or abstracts of 81 articles
neighborhoods, housing, and real estate (Drake or book reviews before 1970, which constituted
& Cayton 1945, Hoyt 1933, Zorbaugh 1937). an average of 1.08 entries/year. This figure
Beginning in the 1940s, when Wirth (1947) declined to 0.79 entries/year after 1970 (34
laid out a template for “Housing as a Field of total articles or book reviews). The same
Sociological Research,” and through the 1970s, pattern is revealed in the American Sociological
attention turned to the tremendous changes Review, in which there were 1.18 entries/year
that were taking place as a result of the federal with “housing” in the title or abstract before
government’s role in building public housing, 1970 compared to 0.74 entries/year after 1970.
funding urban renewal, and facilitating subur- In light of this, it is difficult to identify what
banization (Gans 1967, Meyerson & Banfield precisely constitutes a sociology of housing
1955, Rossi & Dentler 1961). The classic (Foley 1980) because much research has shifted
Behind Ghetto Walls begins with first-hand to the study of neighborhoods, racial conflict,
descriptions of the physical setting of the families, social movements, urban politics,
Pruitt-Igoe public housing project in St. Louis. or financial institutions and is often now
As one resident commented, “They were trying published in interdisciplinary journals. Where
to put a whole bunch of people in a little bitty sociologists have exited, economists, architects,
space. They did a pretty good job—there’s a planners, geographers, policy researchers,
lot of people here” (Rainwater 1970, p. 11). historians, and cultural studies scholars have
In another classic, Herbert Gans offered an entered.2 In the sections that follow, I pull
ethnographic study of the West End in Boston, from all of these fields and, of course, from
where city officials had deemed two-thirds sociology to focus on the research that puts the
of the housing to be substandard. But “West
Enders did not think of their area as a slum,”
Gans wrote. Instead, he argued, “People kept 2
A continued focus on the physical character of housing is
their apartments as up-to-date as they could represented in studies in epidemiology and public health
afford to, and most of the ones I saw differed on the effect of housing on asthma, injuries, communicable
diseases, and other health outcomes (Saegert et al. 2001).
little from lower-middle-class ones in urban or
This subject has been taken up aggressively in public policy
suburban neighborhoods” (Gans 1962, p. 20). campaigns such as “Healthy Homes” programs by both
the Centers for Disease Control (http://www.cdc.gov/
nceh/lead/healthyhomes.htm) and the Department of
1
For a discussion of the gender discrimination experienced Housing and Urban Development (http://portal.hud.gov/
by early women sociologists and their eventual segregation hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/healthy_homes/
into the field of social work see Deegan (1981). hhi).

www.annualreviews.org • Housing: Commodity versus Right 511

 SO39CH25-Pattillo ARI 26 June 2013 16:7

study of housing—as commodity or right—at faster than incomes during much of that time,
the center of analysis. I conclude with ideas especially for renters (Quigley & Raphael
about what new research directions might 2004). Housing is a consumer good like a gal-
motivate a more focused sociology of housing. lon of milk, a car, or a couch, yet owing to its
fixity in space and the prestige or stigma it can
impart, the exchange value of a dwelling unit—
HOUSING AS COMMODITY
captured in its price or rent—is more than
Daily news of trends in housing prices, foreclo- simply the price of the bricks and shingles that
sures, mortgage interest rates, and “new hous- comprise the structure. Within housing prices
ing starts” as an indicator of national economic are capitalized the quality of schools, nearby
health makes it hardly necessary to state that commercial offerings, neighborhood amenities
housing is a commodity. This has not always
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such as parks and natural landscapes, the profile

been the case, however, and it is important to of neighbors, and crime rates. Housing prices
recognize that the expansion of the market ever and rents are also the result of political and
Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2013.39:509-531. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

further into the spheres of land and housing is legal decisions about taxation, zoning, deseg-
an emergent feature of modern capitalism and is regation, policing, labor, and infrastructure,
neither self-evident nor given. Urban historian among many other things, and the reliance on
Lewis Mumford (1961) wrote about this trans- housing as a wealth-producing commodity may
formation, “Thus the city, from the beginning be inversely related to the generosity of welfare
of the nineteenth century on, was treated not state provisions (Conley & Gifford 2006).
as a public institution, but a private commer- Although housing economists operate with
cial venture to be carved up in any fashion that assumptions about the purity of the housing
might increase the turnover and further the rise market as a market, sociologists highlight
in land values” (p. 507).3 the fact that markets are social and political
In more recent history, housing has gone creations (Feagin 1988, 1998; Gottdiener 1994;
from being a simple commodity to being a Logan & Molotch 1987; Squires 1989). There-
complex financial technology that showed fore, studying housing as a commodity does
the capacity to bring nearly the entire world not simply mean determining or predicting
economy to its knees in the Great Recession. housing prices and thereby measuring the de-
In the wake of the 2008 crisis, several scholars mand for housing based on the characteristics
have chronicled the causal force of mortgage of the house and its surroundings, as is done in
securitization (e.g., Aalbers 2012, Fligstein & economic hedonic price analyses. Instead, the
Goldstein 2011), and have uncovered the sociological investigation of the commodity
instigatory role of the federal government nature of housing explores the “real estate in-
in developing and promulgating mortgage- frastructure made up of homebuilders, lenders,
backed securities in order to manage social insurers, appraisers, real estate agents and
crises, balance budget deficits, and generate firms, and state activity at all levels” (Gotham
revenues (Quinn 2010). Hence, the commod- 2002, p. 7). The actions of these stakeholders
ity character of housing has macrohistorical have made housing manufacturing, the produc-
roots and both macro- and microeconomic tion of the attendant infrastructure, housing
manifestations and consequences. sales and resales, and financing perhaps the
Housing has been the single largest ex- most important engine of the US economy.
penditure in the average American household Under this rubric, sociologists have been
budget since the 1960s (Bur. Labor Stat. 2011, particularly active in addressing the following
Johnson et al. 2001), with housing costs rising three questions: How is the housing market
financed for prospective buyers? How do
3
I thank Matthew Desmond for raising this important histor- inequalities in property values affect wealth
ical point and sharing with me this passage from Mumford.

512 Pattillo
 SO39CH25-Pattillo ARI 26 June 2013 16:7

stratification? And what happens to people setbacks from the street, which excluded the
who cannot afford prevailing housing prices? more densely constructed, multi-unit buildings
and row houses of inner cities. Working-class
Mortgages and Housing Finance European immigrants were also negatively af-
Modern mortgage financing was developed fected by discriminatory appraisal and lending
in the early part of the twentieth century and practices (Massey & Denton 1993), but with
gained widespread dispersion in response to assimilation and socioeconomic mobility, they
the Great Depression and through a series of were eventually allowed entry into “white”
government interventions that fixed mortgage neighborhoods where mortgage dollars flowed
rates, lengthened the time period over which (Guglielmo 2003). Federal government guide-
people paid off their loans, and insured private lines warned against the presence of what they
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mortgages against default by individual buyers termed “inharmonious” racial groups. Jackson
(Stuart 2003). Because these programs were (1985) recounts the example of Lincoln Terrace
developed in the 1930s and 1940s, when racial in St. Louis. The development was intended
Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2013.39:509-531. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

discrimination was widespread and racial resi- for and marketed to middle-class white families
dential segregation was commonplace, there is but was unsuccessful in this plan, and African
considerable research on how the new regime Americans moved in. In 1937, even though
of housing finance systematically disadvantaged the structures were only 10 years old, the
African Americans and other racial minorities. federal Home Owners’ Loan Corporation
Hence, from the very beginning it is clear that gave the neighborhood its lowest rating and
although housing is a commodity exchanged in withheld mortgage financing, stating that it
the market, that character cannot be disentan- had “little or no value today, having suffered
gled from beliefs, structures, politics, or policy. a tremendous decline in values due to the
When the federal government entered the colored element now controlling the district”
business of insuring private mortgages and (p. 200). In western cities, Mexican Americans
directly supplying home loans, it needed a rou- and Asian Americans were met with similar
tinized system of appraisals in order to gauge treatment (Hernandez 2012, Pulido 2000).
the relative risk of various investments. This Until 1977, official appraisal manuals explicitly
process required techniques for determining called for lower appraised values in racially
both value and risk, and those techniques were mixed neighborhoods, and the denial of home
steeped in the racial prejudices of the times financing to inner-city communities of color
(Stuart 2003). While each dwelling unit was persisted well after such language was deleted
subject to appraisal, whole neighborhoods were (Kuebler 2012, Yinger 1995).
also rated. The neighborhood rating system The unequal system of housing finance
included letters (A, B, C, D) and a color code (among other racial and class discriminatory
whereby parts of the city were shaded green, practices) has indelibly shaped the geography
blue, yellow, and, for the lowest category, and demography of metropolitan areas, cre-
red. Thus, the term redlining refers to the ating clear patterns of uneven development
practice of denying loans to an area because marked by disinvestment that has disadvan-
of loan providers’ assessments of lower current taged central cities and advantaged suburbs
or future values, which signals that the area’s (Castells 1977, Squires & Kubrin 2006). Con-
homes are bad investments. centrated poverty and affluence, metropolitan
The research is clear that the neighborhood fragmentation, gross inequities in infrastruc-
rating system was intertwined with racial, ture and amenities, school inequality, and the
ethnic, and antiurban biases (Aalbers 2011, location of jobs all connect to the consumption,
Bonastia 2006, Freund 2007, Gotham 2002, production, and distribution of housing as
Haynes 2001, Jackson 1985). The rating system a commodity (Squires 1994). For example,
privileged houses on larger lots and with larger Gotham (2002) shows that in the marketing

www.annualreviews.org • Housing: Commodity versus Right 513

 SO39CH25-Pattillo ARI 26 June 2013 16:7

of housing in 1950s metropolitan Kansas City, residential mortgage debt in developing- and
real estate designations of “east of Troost Av- emerging-market countries to warn of “a new
enue” and “west of Troost Avenue” coincided global space for the deployment of subprime
with the then-recent decisions by the Kansas mortgages” (p. 91) that is likely to engender
City Metropolitan School District to create the extraction of profit from middle-income
racially segregated attendance zones along the people across the globe (for other treatments of
Troost Avenue boundary. Such explicit geo- the mortgage-market failure, see Immergluck
graphic identifiers served as code for the racial 2009, Marcuse 2009, Squires & Hyra 2010).
groups targeted for residence in these neigh- Studies of the impact of the foreclosure
borhoods. Such practices led to widespread crisis on families and communities are just
blockbusting, whereby real estate agents used beginning to be published in peer-reviewed
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scare tactics to get whites to sell quickly and form. Been et al. (2011) focus on the effects
at low prices while overcharging new black of foreclosure on children’s schooling. They
buyers, creating “a real estate transaction find that although children in buildings under
Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2013.39:509-531. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

that was typically exploitative and victimizing foreclosure are more likely than other children
for both Blacks and Whites” (Gotham 2002, to change schools, they are no more likely to
p. 113; also see Satter 2009). Such practices move to a lower-performing school than other
also progressively pushed whites to the suburbs children who move. That is, school mobility is
(Seligman 2005). These detailed studies of related to lower school quality for all children
specific urban housing markets show that the who move, not just those who move because
exchange of homes as commodities does not of foreclosure. Another focus of research is
take place in a value-free economic market. foreclosure’s impact on health. Two studies
Whereas historical studies of access to credit find that people undergoing foreclosure are
emphasize the marginalization of nonwhites more likely to be hypertensive and have heart
from the housing market, the fallout from the disease, less likely to have health insurance, and
housing collapse of 2008 has highlighted how more likely to have visited the emergency room
bank deregulation and the invention of new in the two years preceding foreclosure (Pollack
financial products combined with residential et al. 2011, Pollack & Lynch 2009). Another
racial segregation led to the excessive and study shows that an increase in foreclosures at
“predatory” supply of credit to the same pop- the zip-code level is correlated with increases
ulations (Aalbers 2012, Rugh & Massey 2010, in medical visits (Currie & Tekin 2011). These
Squires 2003). At the macro level, MacKenzie studies do not determine causation, and thus it
(2011) describes the failures of the securiti- is not clear if poor health causes foreclosure or
zation of mortgages as, in part, the result of foreclosure causes poor health. Finally, a full
organizational routines that extended standard special issue of Social Science Quarterly looks at
evaluation practices to a new product without the impact of foreclosures on crime rates at the
recognizing it was substantially different, an neighborhood level. The findings across the
“epistemic orphan, cognitively peripheral to collection of articles are mixed, with one finding
its parent worlds” (p. 1,831). Sassen (2012) that higher foreclosure rates lead to more crime
approaches the securitization of mortgages (Stucky et al. 2012), others finding no direct
from a Marxist perspective, analyzing such correlation ( Jones & Pridemore 2012, Kirk
instruments as expanding the operational space & Hyra 2012), another finding mixed results
of capitalist relations beyond traditionally ex- (Baumer et al. 2012), and yet another finding
ploited workers to include “petty and national time- or context-dependent relationships
bourgeoisies,” who are the current targets in (Wallace et al. 2012). The foreclosure crisis is
“a new circuit for high finance for the benefit sure to generate a large amount of new schol-
of investors and a total disregard for the home- arship in order to more precisely specify its
owners involved” (p. 78). Sassen uses data on effects.

514 Pattillo
 SO39CH25-Pattillo ARI 26 June 2013 16:7

Homeownership, Property Values, price, such as higher neighborhood poverty

and Wealth rates, lower educational attainment of res-
idents, and smaller homes. Other studies,
Unlike most other commodities, which are
however, challenge the racial proxy logic,
quickly consumed and exhausted, housing re-
finding residual price discrimination against
tains value during consumption, increases and
black, and in some studies Hispanic, neigh-
decreases in value over time, can have sev-
borhoods despite experimental controls for
eral owners/consumers, and can persist across
other relevant neighborhood characteristics
decades, if not centuries. When housing in-
(Emerson et al. 2011, Krysan et al. 2009).
creases in value, it creates wealth for owners,
Flippen (2004) uses the national Health
whereas decreases in value can create debt and
and Retirement Study (HRS) to investigate
financial hardship. Therefore, research on the
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house value appreciation among blacks, whites,

commodity value of housing necessarily con-
and Hispanics living in neighborhoods of
nects to the study of wealth (Henretta 1984).
various racial compositions. She finds that
Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2013.39:509-531. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

At the end of 2012, the homeownership

housing appreciates more slowly in predom-
rate in the United States stood at 65%, with
inantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods
considerable variability by race: 74% for
than in predominantly white neighborhoods,
non-Hispanic whites, 45% for Hispanics,
even after controlling for neighborhood
45% for blacks, and 55% for Asians/Others
sociodemographics and housing stock char-
(US Census Bur. 2013). These differences
acteristics. Housing value appreciation in
persist despite various controls (Barnes &
integrated neighborhoods does not differ
Jaret 2003, Horton 1992, Jackman & Jackman
significantly from that in white neighbor-
1980, Rosenbaum & Friedman 2007) and
hoods. Flippen also finds that Hispanic
are in part attributable to the discriminatory
neighborhoods experiencing high immigrant
lending practices discussed above, along with
demand show positive house value appreciation
historical affirmative homeownership policies
compared to other Hispanic places. Not sur-
for whites (Katznelson 2005). Equity in homes
prisingly, she finds that higher neighborhood
is the largest single asset for most families,
poverty rates lead to lower appreciation, but
and so sociologists have studied property
neighborhood poverty does not totally account
values because they contribute to inequalities
for the negative effect of nonwhite racial
between families, especially racial inequalities.
composition. In decomposing the impact of
The data show that property values are lower
neighborhood-, housing-, and individual-level
for African Americans and Hispanics than for
factors, Flippen (2004, p. 1,543) concludes
whites and Asians, even when controlling for
that “if the average black (Hispanic) HRS
characteristics of the individual, the family, and
respondents lived in the same neighborhoods
the house itself (Flippen 2001, Long & Caudill
as the average white HRS respondent, their
1992, Oliver & Shapiro 1995, Sykes 2003).
home would be worth $24,500 ($59,300) more
Another line of research studies overall
in 1992 than if they lived in the typical black
property values in neighborhoods of varying
(Hispanic) neighborhood. This would repre-
racial compositions and consistently finds
sent a 39% and 76% increase in current home
lower property values in areas with high pro-
values for blacks and Hispanics, respectively.”
portions of nonwhites (Anacker 2010, Denton
The fact that blacks and Hispanics ex-
2001, Kim 2000). Harris (1999) argues that this
perience lower property values and value
is a “racial proxy” effect, whereby the negative
appreciation than whites impacts other areas
correlation between nonwhite neighborhood
of inequality. Conley (1999) shows that racial
majorities and property values actually stands
disparities in wealth explain racial disparities in
in for other neighborhood characteristics that
other socioeconomic outcomes, such as hours
negatively affect desirability, demand, and
worked and high school graduation. Notably,

www.annualreviews.org • Housing: Commodity versus Right 515

 SO39CH25-Pattillo ARI 26 June 2013 16:7

he finds that parents’ primary residence equity of “affordability”). Because some of those units
has the largest impact on the probability that are occupied by higher-income people or are in
a child will complete college. Homeownership disrepair, there are actually only 30 affordable
and housing wealth are also important for the units that are available for this population (Natl.
intergenerational transfer of advantage and Low Income Hous. Coalit. 2012). A shortage
disadvantage. Shapiro (2004) shows that when also exists for households earning between 31%
parents help to pay for college, this frees up the and 50% of their metro area’s median income.
resources of young adults to begin their own In 2010, fully 53% of renter households
process of asset accumulation, allowing them to (and 38% of homeowners) were classified as
buy homes in more advantaged neighborhoods housing-cost burdened, paying more than 30%
with better schools, which in turn imparts of their income toward rent; 27% of renters
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advantages to their children (Hall & Crowder were severely cost burdened, paying more
2011, Heflin & Pattillo 2002, Henretta 1984, than 50% of their income. In fact, according
Johnson 2006, Oliver & Shapiro 1995). Such to the US Census Bureau (2011), the cost of
Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2013.39:509-531. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

intergenerational benefits and barriers by race housing across the country averaged 34% of
and class result from the commodity status of income in renter-occupied units; that is, the
housing in the economy. But what about those overall average was above the cost-burden
who are extremely burdened by or completely threshold. Meanwhile, the supply of low-cost
priced out of the housing market? rental units declined by 12% from 1999 to
2009, while housing affordable to high-income
households—a sector in which there is no
Affordability, Renters, Eviction, shortage—increased substantially (Natl. Low
and Homelessness Income Hous. Coalit. 2011; also see Joint
Those with the greatest resources are able Cent. Hous. Stud. 2011). Finally, Holupka &
to buy or rent the best housing in the best Newman (2011, table 2) show that whereas
locations, with each income stratum down the proportion of children living in physically
the ladder buying successively lower-quality inadequate housing was cut in half from 1975
housing in worse locations (with the important to 2005, the proportion living in unaffordable
caveat of the distorting effects of discrimina- housing more than doubled.
tion). In theory, the market should produce The literature on foreclosure highlighted
enough housing to satisfy the demands of those the challenges of affordability for owners. Here,
throughout the socioeconomic spectrum. I focus on renters. Dreier (1982) offers a helpful
However, housing problems do not arise primer on the status of tenants. He shows that
because of a lack of supply. At the end of 2012, tenants occupy a disadvantaged status cultur-
there were nearly 18 million vacant housing ally, socially, and legally. Their cultural disad-
units in the United States (US Census Bur. vantage arises from the emphasis in the United
2012). Instead, because of a complex set of States on individual property ownership as a
housing (and labor) market policies and prac- sign of moral self-worth and economic virtue.
tices, many of which are discussed throughout Such ideologies about ownership govern social
this article, there is a lack of supply at a price relations at the local level, where, for example,
that people—especially low-income people— in community meetings homeowners often
can afford. And the mismatch is acute. For every make explicitly disparaging comments about
100 extremely-low-income renter households renters (Goetz & Sidney 1994, Pattillo 2007).
(defined as earning less than 30% of their metro Legally, this stigma translates into discrimina-
area’s median income), of which there were tion through tax policies that reduce the cost
9.8 million in the United States in 2010, there of homeownership but not renting (Glaeser
are 56 housing units that they could rent for no 2011); into tenant-landlord laws that create a
more than 30% of their income (the definition situation in which “landlords can evict tenants

516 Pattillo
 SO39CH25-Pattillo ARI 26 June 2013 16:7

for almost any reason at all, not only failure to violent and problem behavior (Leech 2012,
pay rent, and can use the power of the courts Reingold et al. 2001); mixed effects on maternal
to back them up” (Dreier 1982, p. 186) but in and child health (Fertig & Reingold 2007);
which tenants have very little power to force and positive effects for later housing stability,
landlords to do anything (also see Burridge earnings, employment, education, and reduced
& Ormandy 2007); and into zoning laws that, crowding (Aratani 2010, Currie & Yelowitz
in theory, exist to create order in design and 2000, Newman & Harkness 2002).4 A recent
segregate various kinds of land uses (e.g., sepa- experiment that gave welfare-eligible families
rating industrial from residential areas) but, in housing vouchers showed results that are too
practice, are often used to segregate economic numerous to report but were mostly positive,
groups or exclude rental property and its res- including reduced homelessness, decreased
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idents altogether (Briggs 2005, Orfield 2005). overcrowding, improved neighborhood condi-
To the disadvantaged cultural, social, and legal tions, reduced employment rates and earnings
status of tenants, Gilderbloom & Applebaum but only in the short term, increased public
Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2013.39:509-531. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

(1987) add the layer of economics and build a assistance use, and no consistent effects for chil-
theoretical and empirical argument that rental dren (Abt Assoc. Inc. 2006, Wood et al. 2008).
markets are monopolistic and not competitive. Another way to study the impact of unaf-
Much of the research on housing fordability is by looking at similar families in
(un)affordability is descriptive and docu- areas with different housing prices. Using this
ments the (un)availability of affordable housing method, Harkness et al. (2009) report the unex-
over time (Mutchler & Krivo 1989, Stone pected finding that poor and near-poor children
1993); what demographic groups are more or in high-priced markets do not fare any worse
less likely to be housing-cost burdened (Diaz than comparable children in low-cost markets.
McConnell & Akresh 2010, Squires et al. Moreover, children in near-poor families (earn-
1999); and the market, political, and regulatory ing between 100% and 200% of poverty-line
factors that increase or decrease the supply of income) that live in high-cost housing markets
affordable housing (Beitel 2007, Goetz 1991, have better cognitive outcomes than those in
Lang et al. 2008, Orfield 1997, Pendall et al. low-cost markets. Discussing these results,
2005). Another line of research examines the Holupka & Newman (2011, p. 238) propose,
impact of government-subsidized housing on “This new research may say more about
surrounding property values, generally finding the possible benefits of well-endowed—and,
that subsidized housing has a more positive therefore, more expensive—communities for
than negative effect on property values (Ellen children’s outcomes than about the traditional
et al. 2007, Santiago et al. 2001). concerns associated with housing affordability
There is some research on how housing per se.” However, using different data sets,
unaffordability impacts families and individ- Harkness & Newman (2005) find evidence that
uals, and the findings are mixed. One way to living in places with more affordable housing
study the effects of unaffordability is to see
what happens when people are given housing
subsidies—through a subsidized unit or a 4
This research on public housing focuses on the impact of
voucher—in order to make housing more the financial subsidy by investigating the outcomes of its res-
affordable. The studies that compare families idents compared to the outcomes of similar residents who
who live in public housing with similar families do not receive such a subsidy. Hence, it is separate from the
descriptive studies of public housing that, for example, de-
who do not, and try to address selection bias, scribe poverty concentration and high crime rates (Massey &
have mixed results. Studies find negative effects Kanaiaupuni 1993, Popkin 2000). It is also distinct from
for welfare receipt (Newman et al. 2009) and the recent research on the Moving to Opportunity (MTO)
demonstration (Briggs et al. 2010). MTO was a neighbor-
earnings (Susin 2005); no effects on social cap- hood intervention, not an affordability intervention; all par-
ital, labor market participation, and adolescent ticipants were already receiving public housing.

www.annualreviews.org • Housing: Commodity versus Right 517

 SO39CH25-Pattillo ARI 26 June 2013 16:7

yields better educational outcomes for poor disproportionately impacts African Americans
children, and Newman & Holupka (2012) find and, to a lesser extent, Hispanics. Black women
that children’s cognitive performance declines experience the highest incidence of eviction,
as families spend more than 30% of their whereas white women compared to white men
income on housing. Clearly, investigating the show similar or perhaps lower rates of eviction.
effects of (un)affordable housing on a range of Using ethnographic observations, Desmond
family and individual outcomes is an area ripe describes the financial responsibilities that
for additional research. black women bear within their families; the
Extreme unaffordability can lead to eviction unexpected expenses that confront them,
and homelessness. Considerable research and especially mothers, while their incomes remain
several review articles have addressed the latter fixed; the differential treatment of women by
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topic (Fertig & Reingold 2008, Gowan 2010, landlords; and women’s less confrontational
Hopper 2003, Lee & Price-Spratlen 2004, response to the threat of eviction, “ducking
Lee et al. 2010, Shlay & Rossi 1992, Snow and dodging” to their disadvantage. Other
Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2013.39:509-531. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

& Anderson 1992, Wasserman & Clair 2010, studies that pay explicit attention to eviction
Zald 2004). Although I do not treat the topic of show the efficacy of organizing for protecting
homelessness in this review, the visibility of and tenant rights (Arena 2012, Atlas 2010, Earle
provision for the unhoused epitomize the ten- 2012), the susceptibility to eviction of various
sion between housing as a commodity and hous- subgroups (Geller & Curtis 2011, Latimer &
ing as a right. The persistence of homelessness Woldoff 2010), and the negative impact of
within a context of housing surplus illustrates a eviction on children (Anil et al. 2011).
resolute deference to the prerogatives and prof- Severe housing cost burden, foreclosure,
its of the private housing market, whereas the eviction, and homelessness are outcomes of the
social unease and dismay about the issue signal commodity nature of housing. And they are not
the possible existence of rights sentiments. extreme examples. Despite being a basic good
The study of eviction, however, represents for human survival, its price on the market ex-
a nearly unexplored area of research. Hartman ceeds many people’s wages. There is not one
& Robinson (2003, p. 461) begin their article, state in the United States in which someone
entitled “Evictions: The Hidden Housing working full-time at minimum wage can afford
Problem,” with the following statement: “Each a “fair market rent” two-bedroom apartment.
year, an untold number of Americans are Such facts have motivated critical scholarly dis-
evicted or otherwise forced to leave their cussion and research about housing as a right,
homes involuntarily. The number is likely in not a commodity.
the many millions, but we have no way of gaug-
ing even a modestly precise figure for renters,
because such data are simply not collected on a HOUSING AS RIGHT
national basis or in any systematic way in most Although the proclamation that housing is
localities where evictions take place.” Given a right may seem straightforward, it is not.
the absence of such data, the authors instead In this section, I review the conceptual and
offer important first steps: working through theoretical elaborations on housing as a right
difficult definitional issues, reviewing existing and the empirical research on people who claim
local case studies on evictions, describing this right through collective action. These
the legal context of evictions, discussing how approaches are not mutually exclusive, but
tenants fight back, and proposing how national rather offer an organized way to approach this
data might be collected. literature. The conceptual work in this area is
Desmond (2012) advances this research by rooted in a Marxist tradition and includes crit-
showing how eviction is structurally patterned ical urban theory (Brenner et al. 2012)—which
in the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where it goes beyond the issue of housing to make a

518 Pattillo
 SO39CH25-Pattillo ARI 26 June 2013 16:7

case for the right to the city—and political the alienated” (Marcuse 2012, p. 33). The pro-
economy theory (Bratt et al. 2006), which posals in Cities for People, Not for Profit, particu-
is more closely in dialogue with politics and larly as they relate to housing, are quite varied.
policy.5 The empirical work in this area covers In one chapter, Uitermark (2012) chronicles the
the international context of human rights, transformation of Amsterdam in the Nether-
international law, and activist housing strug- lands from being a “just city” (Fainstein 2010)—
gles, plus domestic contestations over housing, with an active, cross-class residents’ movement
especially in the matter of public housing. that led to the strong regulation of rents, the
curtailment of owners’ rights, and broad access
to newly produced social housing—to being just
Critical Urban and Political a “nice city,” maintaining a greater proportion
Economy Theory
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of social housing than most other cities but on

Rather than defining the housing problem as a clear road toward recommodification.6 In an-
one of insufficient income on the part of some to other chapter, Harvey & Wachsmuth (2012)
Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2013.39:509-531. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

afford the commodity price of housing, critical are not resigned to the nice city but offer a
theorists posit that the mere fact of the com- sobering analysis of how to move strategically
modification of housing is the core problem. toward a right to the city and a right to housing,
Thus, realizing a right to housing must involve an analysis that seems to significantly temper
taking housing out of the market system—its Harvey’s more radical and canonical earlier
decommodification—or other strategies that writings (Harvey 1973). Although the au-
move in that direction. Below, I discuss two re- thors are encouraged by current movements to
cent edited volumes in which this case is made. reclaim land and housing through organized
In Cities for People, Not for Profit, Brenner appropriation (they cite Rameau 2008), their
et al. (2012) argue that cities are the central sites conclusion is less sanguine: “[P]erhaps the best
of contemporary capitalist relations. Thus, lo- we can do right now is to redirect that Keyne-
cal experiences of, for example, homelessness, sianism in such a way that it benefits the mass
gated communities, downtown office building of the people rather than continue to centralize
construction, and condo conversions are linked capitalist class power” (p. 271).
to the intensification of capitalist relations In a more bold chapter, Flierl & Marcuse
through processes such as financialization and (2012) make the connection to Marx and
globalization (of law, of labor, of information, Engels most explicit. After Flierl discusses the
etc.). This proliferation of capitalist relations lessons he learned from participating in urban
has created severe inequalities that play out in planning and housing provision in socialist East
cities, where some groups have privileged and Berlin, he concludes that a city (and housing)
unbridled access to urban resources and others for people and not for profit is not possible in
are completely excluded, through price, law, vi- a society that maintains capitalist ownership
olence, and other forms of repression in which of production. “Ideas, social aims, and moral
state and capitalist actors collude. Following the principles may be perfectly correct, but they are
legacy of social theorist Henri Lefebvre, critical ultimately ineffective as long as the necessary
urban theorists call for a right to the city, partic- economic as well as political conditions are
ularly for those who do not currently have such absent or insufficiently present—that is, demo-
rights. The right to the city “combin[es] the de- cratic control over the ownership of the means
mands of the oppressed with the aspirations of of production that serve to produce and repro-
duce the city and, more expansively conceived,

5
Although not focused on cities or on housing, the Real
Utopias Project (Wright 2010) is another source of ideas on
6
how to achieve a right to housing, especially Bowles et al. Britain experienced an even more drastic marketization of
(1998). Also see Blau & Moncada (2007). social housing (see King 2010).

www.annualreviews.org • Housing: Commodity versus Right 519

 SO39CH25-Pattillo ARI 26 June 2013 16:7

the entire populated earth” (p. 247). The or operated for profit and thus renders no spec-
provenance of this statement is obvious. In The ulative gain for owners and offers housing secu-
Housing Question, a set of essays first published rity (protection against eviction) for residents.
in 1872, Engels (1935, p. 77) wrote, “As long as Examples of social ownership include public
the capitalist mode of production continues to housing, housing built by nonprofit organiza-
exist, it is folly to hope for an isolated solution tions, limited-equity cooperatives, and com-
of the housing question or of any other social munity land trusts. Under social ownership,
question affecting the fate of the workers. The the elimination of profit and speculation would
solution lies in the abolition of the capitalist moderate prices and put housing within every-
mode of production and the appropriation of all one’s reach. However, the obvious weakness in
the means of life and labor by the working class the argument is that the production of housing
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itself.”7 Hence, the solutions proposed under would still require capital resources that few
this vision of a right to housing range from those nonprofit organizations possess, thereby main-
most faithful to a Marxist intellectual tradition taining a need for a system of housing finance,
Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2013.39:509-531. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

to a more moderate model of state regulation which would reignite the commodity character
and tenant activism within a capitalist system. of housing. Hence, a succeeding chapter lays
Compared to Cities for People, Not for Profit, out the tenets of social financing (Swack 2006).
the proposals in A Right to Housing (Bratt et al. Other chapters review the legal possibilities
2006) are generally more pragmatic, gradual- for creating a right to housing, the difficulties of
ist, and conversant with empirical observations attaining a right to housing even in community-
of existing housing policies and interventions, development organizations, the considerations
mostly in the United States. The motivation important for women in claiming a right to
for a right to housing is not, centrally, Marxist housing, and, finally, a history of housing or-
theory, but rather, as stated in the book’s first ganizing that is the necessary route to making a
line, the “unconscionable” fact “that in the 21st right to housing a reality. It is to the topic of or-
century, upwards of 100 million people in the ganizing and social movements that I now turn.
United States live in housing that is physically
inadequate, in unsafe neighborhoods, over-
crowded, or way beyond what they realistically International and US Studies
could afford” (p. 1). The rights case is made in of Housing Activism
straightforward terms. For example, Hartman Section 1 of Article 25 of the United Nations
(2006) bases the right to housing on a norma- Universal Declaration of Human Rights of
tive call for justice; on a practical analysis of the 1948 states, “Everyone has the right to a
harms borne by people facing severe housing standard of living adequate for the health and
problems and the consequent costs to society; well-being of himself and of his family, includ-
and, finally, on the threat to democracy that ex- ing food, clothing, housing and medical care
ists when people’s basic needs are not met. and necessary social services” (UN Gen. Assem.
The proposals are concrete. For example, 1948). Eighty-nine countries make explicit ref-
Stone (2006) suggests the strategy of “social erence to housing rights in their constitutions
ownership,” which is housing that is not owned (United Nations 2002). This list does not in-
clude the United States. The United States got
close to such an entitlement in the 1949 Hous-
7
ing Act, which stated, “The Congress hereby
The Housing Question is incredibly prescient on several is-
sues, such as the bias toward homeownership (pp. 11, 47, declares that the general welfare and security of
50), bourgeois policy responses to housing problems (pp. 43, the Nation and the health and living standards
63, 68), foreclosures (p. 51), urban renewal and gentrifica- of its people require. . .the realization as soon
tion (pp. 23, 74, 77), sexual harassment of women tenants
by landlords (p. 59), and the housing emergency created in as feasible of the goal of a decent home and a
developing countries by rapid urbanization (p. 21). suitable living environment for every American

520 Pattillo
 SO39CH25-Pattillo ARI 26 June 2013 16:7

family” (US House Comm. Financ. Serv. 2003). Mumbai. In Shanghai, neighborhood residents
But a goal is not a right. Closer still, the United marched, wrote letters, filed lawsuits, and
States ratified the UN International Covenant engaged social media to fight removal from
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (UN their homes. Their most effective tactic was
Gen. Assem. 1966), which states, “The States to become “nail households,” families who re-
Parties to the present Covenant recognize the fused to leave their dwellings even in the face of
right of everyone to an adequate standard of bulldozers and harassment. In Mumbai, greater
living for himself and his family, including political freedoms meant that mass street mobi-
adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the lizations were more common. In one example,
continuous improvement of living conditions.” a coalition of movement organizations success-
All these strong statements may perhaps sig- fully halted state urban renewal activities, which
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nify that a right to housing already exists. Yet had already demolished 90,000 homes, leaving
proclaiming or subscribing to a right through 400,000 homeless. Other important research
the means of a constitution, legislation, or a in this area covers reactions to and protests
Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2013.39:509-531. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

covenant does not ensure government action against the marketization of social housing
or implementation. Hence, social movements in postsocialist cities (Zavisca 2008, Zhou &
arise to bring abstract professions into reality. Logan 1996); the legal claims to housing and
The world population became majority land rights in postconflict countries (Leckie
urban in 2008 as a result of tremendous rural- 2009); and urban squatting (Pruijt 2013).
to-urban migration in developing countries. The formal sector dominates in the United
With limited state capacity to build new States, and thus there is little research on
housing at a commensurate pace, newcomers the appropriation of housing through such
founded informal settlements on the outskirts practices as squatting (for exceptions, see
of cities, on government and privately owned Katz & Mayer 1985, Pruijt 2003, Steffen
land, and in the interstices of already developed 2012). The most active scholarship surrounds
parts of cities (Auyero 2011, Auyero & Swistun protest against contemporary public housing
2009, Murray 2008). They built homes and, policies and contested gentrification. Reviews
with varying degrees of success, commandeered of the gentrification literature already exist
access to electricity, water, and information (Brown-Saracino 2010, Zukin 1987), and thus
networks. Ownership of what they built has I focus on tenant activism in public housing.
been precarious, and few have official land title It is ironic that the place where there is con-
or rights to their homes, even though there siderable sociological research on tenant ac-
is an active economic and symbolic commerce tivism is within the sector that Stone (2006,
in informal dwelling units, among other types discussed above) identified as already repre-
of goods (Fernández-Kelly & Shefner 2006). senting a model of social ownership. Indeed,
Although the initial act of appropriating land government intervention in the housing mar-
for housing construction is a blatant mani- ket on behalf of poor people highlights that the
festation of a right to housing, some recent commodity/rights dichotomy is overly stylized.
efforts for legalization and recognition move Whether through direct government owner-
in the direction of the commodification of ship, tax breaks for homeowners, or housing
such housing, thus opening the door for cycles vouchers, public efforts in the service of broad-
of speculation that will lead to exclusion and ening (if not universalizing) access to housing
undermine a rights claim (Rolnik 2011). challenge its free-market commodity character
Whereas in some situations the fight is to and establish instead a mixed political economy
establish a new home, in others it is to resist in the realm of housing. Nonetheless, if threats
displacement and stay in place (Perry 2013). to the right to housing are felt by tenants in the
Weinstein & Ren (2009), for example, study public housing sector, then the entire vision of
activism against urban renewal in Shanghai and housing rights is at risk of compromise.

www.annualreviews.org • Housing: Commodity versus Right 521

 SO39CH25-Pattillo ARI 26 June 2013 16:7

The struggles of working-class people and evators and lights working, the grounds clean,
their allies to guarantee the “decent” and “suit- and children safe, as well as to accommodate
able” provisions of public housing legislation unofficial residents—both family members and
(Radford 1996) are well documented. Small strangers—facilitating an even wider right to
(2004) studied the activism of Puerto Ricans in housing. Even Obama (1995) has contributed
Boston, first to get the Boston Redevelopment his narrative of working with tenant leaders
Authority to build housing and then to work in Chicago’s Altgeld Gardens, although in his
with the city and their neighbors to maintain telling he comes off as more impassioned than
it. Williams (2004) tells the history of the or- the residents.
ganizing of black women in Baltimore public The other strand of research on public hous-
housing since the 1940s, through the installa- ing activism is in response to contemporary
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tion of tenant councils, through campaigns for policies that have reduced the stock of pub-
tenant control, through alliances with welfare- lic housing apartments and have moved swiftly
rights organizations, and in constant demand in the direction of the recommodification of
Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2013.39:509-531. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

of maintenance in order to thwart the phys- public housing through public/private partner-
ical decline of the buildings. In Minneapolis, ships and financing. HOPE VI, a 1992 fed-
Goetz (2003, p. 143) chronicles the negotia- eral program to deconcentrate public housing,
tions for desegregated public housing in which called for the demolition of 100,000 units of
residents always and overwhelmingly called for public housing nationwide. Then, the Quality
the “maximum number of units of public hous- Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998
ing” to be built. In Philadelphia, Hunter (2013) lowered the percentage of public housing units
charts activism to secure African American ac- reserved for the poorest families and ended
cess to newly built public housing. When one rules that required public housing authorities
project that had been promised to blacks was to build one unit of housing for every one
recommissioned for housing (nonblack) mili- they demolished. Even before HOPE VI, ten-
tary personnel, black activists wrote a not-too- ants brought lawsuits against local and fed-
veiled threat. “We, the undersigned, represen- eral housing agencies for what they called “de
tatives of the quarter million Negro residents facto demolition”—systematic neglect and un-
of Philadelphia, make this appeal in behalf of dermaintenance of housing projects that over
the low income group of people for whom time rendered them unlivable, which then jus-
the Richard Allen Homes Project in Philadel- tified housing authorities’ plans to literally
phia was planned, intended and constructed. . . . demolish them (Powell 1995).
This is equally a defense measure, which will The HOPE VI program has generated
sustain and insure the morale of a large per- considerable research on the impacts on sur-
centage of the citizens of our country” (p. 108; rounding neighborhoods (Wyly & Hammel
also see Biondi 2003 on the exclusion of blacks 1999, Zielenbach 2000) and on tenant experi-
from wartime housing in New York City). ences and outcomes (Elliott et al. 2004, Goetz
The research on Chicago is particularly vo- 2003, Graves 2010, Joseph & Chaskin 2012,
luminous. Polikoff (2006) tells the story of pub- Popkin et al. 2009, Tach 2009). But it is the re-
lic housing activists’ legal actions to achieve search on tenant resistance that demonstrates
access to desegregated public housing. Smith tenants’ insistence on a right to be housed and
(2012) uncovers the role of black policy elites to stay in place. With varying degrees of suc-
in Chicago and Washington in demanding de- cess, tenants have filed lawsuits or engaged in
cent new housing for African Americans. Hunt other legal actions against housing authorities
(2009) documents the “explosion” of the tenant who have developed plans to significantly re-
movement in Chicago in the 1970s; Venkatesh duce housing opportunities for existing and fu-
(2000) and Feldman & Stall (2004) focus on ture tenants (Bennett et al. 2006, Hackworth
women’s leadership in agitating to keep the el- 2004). Residents have also organized outside of

522 Pattillo
 SO39CH25-Pattillo ARI 26 June 2013 16:7

the courtroom. Arena (2012) describes the ac- housing. Since the 1960s, the study of housing
tivism of residents in the St. Thomas project in has been somewhat hidden in a wide range of
New Orleans in the 1980s. They took their fight sociological subfields—urban, inequality, social
to achieve decent housing to the boardrooms movements, and race and ethnicity, to name a
of the Housing Authority of New Orleans few. Moreover, the explicit study of housing has
(HANO), to the streets, to the administrative been quite active in other disciplines, namely
offices of the housing project, to the legislature, in economics, public health, planning, policy,
to the courts, and ultimately to the pocketbook architecture, geography, and history. The cur-
of HANO when they waged a successful year- rent mortgage and foreclosure crises and the
long rent strike. This long-term activism met activist responses have generated much-needed
its match not in Hurricane Katrina but in the sociological attention to housing, as have the
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flood of HOPE VI demolition plans that came significant changes in public housing policy.
after it. Tenants did not stop fighting, but this Both have encouraged greater theoretical and
time “public officials and their corporate [and empirical attention to housing as a commodity
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nonprofit] partners seized on this ‘clean slate’ to and as a right in the United States and across the
institute wide-ranging ‘accumulation by dispos- globe.
session’ that opened up ‘new fields for capital Yet there are many other topics that would
accumulation in domains hitherto regarded off- benefit from a sociological perspective and
limits to the calculus of profit making’” (Arena that prioritize the housing unit, rather than
2012, p. 183, quoting Harvey 2005). the neighborhood or politics or the economy.
Residents in Chicago similarly refused to For example, Dwyer (2007, 2009) documents
be removed—for as long as they could. Pattillo the growing taste for “McMansions,” newly
(2007) narrates the story of the 900-unit Lake- constructed large homes in the spirit of the
front Properties, which, authorities announced super sized fast food meals popularized by
in 1986, were to be vacated to allow for reno- McDonalds. Although Dwyer focuses on how
vation. Residents were skeptical, and so when large houses fuel residential segregation, one
everyone else was relocated, 30 residents stayed, might ask: What are the aesthetic, social,
determined to monitor and enforce agreements or ideological sources of this trend? Do we
that people could come back. One organiza- have survey or ethnographic evidence on how
tional leader commented, “Just because we’re people perceive (big and small) houses and
poor and living in public housing doesn’t mean apartments and why? How does house size,
we’ll allow ourselves to be taken advantage of. design, or layout affect family interactions,
We’ll do whatever is necessary to ensure that we children’s activities, or social status? In a study
remain where we’re at” (Pattillo 2007, p. 223). of the relocation of indigenous communities
These cases make clear the tension between in northern Canada from their land and tradi-
housing as a commodity—especially as local tional dwellings to “houses” in the city, van den
public housing authorities are increasingly mo- Scott (2012) attends to some of these questions
tivated to generate revenue rather than provide by focusing on how families interacted with the
housing and services—and housing as a right. walls of these new structures—what people put
Public housing residents recognize the absence on their walls, what walls symbolized, and how
of a universal entitlement and thus have con- they approached the concept of privacy that
stantly waged struggles to reiterate that claim. these new walls created. Here we might go back
to Du Bois’s word “arrangements” and think
about its more literal connotation (rather than
CONCLUSION thinking of it as a metaphor for stratification),
The study of housing has a long history in soci- referring to how things in a house or apartment
ology. The first decades of research were more are arranged. After all, as well as being a
explicitly focused on the physical character of commodity, housing is consumed—furnished,

www.annualreviews.org • Housing: Commodity versus Right 523

 SO39CH25-Pattillo ARI 26 June 2013 16:7

used, adorned, manipulated, worn, updated, symbolic, and social questions. These await
upgraded, abandoned, and displayed—as an further exploration alongside the continuing
object (e.g., see Gieryn 2002, Halle 1993, Silva attention to housing as a commodity, as a
& Wright 2009), raising a rich set of cultural, context, and as a right.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
The author is not aware of any affiliations, memberships, funding, or financial holdings that might
be perceived as affecting the objectivity of this review.
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LITERATURE CITED
Aalbers M. 2011. Place, Exclusion, and Mortgage Markets. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell
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