Power and Precarity: The Political Economy of U.S. Housing Policy

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Housing markets have long been a central focus of policymaking and political contestation across levels of governance in the United States. The recent pandemic exacerbated many of the existing inequalities and instabilities in that market for millions of Americans—especially those at the socioeconomic margins. For people hoping to purchase a home, a longstanding priority of U.S. social policymaking, prices skyrocketed as the housing supply shrunk. For renters, the pandemic ushered in growing monthly housing costs and a dramatic rise in the number of people facing eviction. And, perhaps consequently, localities around the country have been grappling with a surge in homelessness that manifested after COVID-related aid ended. As a result, housing policy has been an especially salient feature of local, state, and federal policymaking in the wake of the pandemic. These issues frequently pit powerful interests, including homeowners, landlords, property developers, lenders, and private equity, against those experiencing housing, and often broader socioeconomic, precarity like renters and homeless populations. This panel explores how political contestation among these differentially powerful groups unfolds to shape housing markets—a critical feature of American political economy. The papers embrace multiple methods of original data collection and analysis, consider different forms of political participation, and take seriously the roles that race, class, and positionality play in these dynamics. Critically, they explore cases not only of powerful actors prevailing, but also of race-class subjugated communities leveraging collective action to build political power and influence local political economies and national political agendas.

The first two papers explore how tenants collectively organize to engage in politics and influence housing policy in opposition to powerful interests (e.g., landlords, developers). In “Power from Precarity: Tenant Organizing, Political Power, and Housing Policy Reform,” Jamila Michener and Mallory SoRelle use original data on the prevalence of tenant organizations and local housing policy changes to examine whether tenant organizations influence the adoption of housing reforms in local political economies that traditionally favor more powerful financial actors. The second paper, “Renter Politics: Race, Class, Landlords, and Power among Chicago Tenants” by Shai Karp, employs in-depth qualitative interviews with Chicago renters to understand how tenancy and experiences with landlords shape renters’ political preferences and engagement. The third paper, “‘Moving Them Elsewhere’: Police as Influencers and Implementers in Homeless Policy” by Katherine Levine Einstein and Charley Willison, draws from original survey, interview, and administrative data to explore how a powerful local actor—the police—shape municipal policy to address homelessness. Finally, Amelia Malpas and Sam Zacher’s “‘In This House We Believe’: The Housing Crisis, Redistribution, and the Renter-Homeowner Divide among Democrats” draws from large-N survey data to explore how renter-homeowner divisions influence redistributive policy within the larger Democratic coalition. Collectively, these papers shed light on how people in positions of precarity and power, respectively, shape the politics of housing policy in the American political economy.

Sub Unit

• Division 61: American Political Economy

Cosponsor

• Division 55: Class and Inequality

Individual Presentations

• Power from Precarity: Tenant Organizing, Political Power, and Housing Policy - Jamila D. Michener, Cornell University; Mallory E. SoRelle, Duke University

• Urbanization, Real Estate, and the Anti-renter Regime in American Housing Policy - Shai Karp, Northwestern University

• Moving Them Elsewhere: Police as Influencers and Implementers in Homeless Policy - Katherine Levine Einstein, Boston University; Charley Ellen Willison, Cornell University

• Housing Policy, Redistribution, & the Renter-Homeowner Divide among Democrats - Sam Zacher, Yale University; Amelia Malpas, Harvard University

• Local Interest Group Participation in the Housing Entitlement Process - Michael Hankinson, George Washington University; Asya Magazinnik, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Anna Weissman, University of California, Berkeley

Chair

• Jessica Luce Trounstine Vanderbilt University

Discussants

• Patricia Posey University of Chicago

• Chloe Thurston Northwestern University