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Capital Market Union and residential capitalism in Europe: Rescaling the housing-centred model of financialization
- Rodrigo Fernandez, Manuel B. Aalbers
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- Journal:
- Finance and Society / Volume 3 / Issue 1 / 2017
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 09 November 2023, pp. 32-50
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This article examines the effects of implementing the proposals of the European Commission to institute a Capital Market Union (CMU) on the diverse landscape of residential capitalism in Europe. The CMU will bypass existing national institutional blockades that left core countries of the Eurozone, namely Germany, France and Italy, largely untouched by the housing-centred financialization that developed in countries like Spain, Ireland, the UK and the Netherlands. It is widely acknowledged that the rise in securitized mortgage debt contributed to the global financial crisis. As part of the CMU, the new European Commission is promoting mortgage securitization throughout the EU and thereby rescaling the political economy of housing finance that was hitherto rooted in national, institutional models. We argue that countries which ‘missed’ the previous housing boom will not be able to prevent future housing-centred financialization. CMU thus signifies a spatial expansion of the debt-led accumulation model.
15 - A Global Red-Light City? Prostitution in Amsterdam as a Real-and-Imagined Place
- Edited by Marco de Waard
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- Book:
- Imagining Global Amsterdam
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 19 January 2021
- Print publication:
- 10 February 2012, pp 273-288
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Summary
Introduction
Only a decade since the Dutch parliament ratified the legalization of prostitution, the sex-oriented Red Light District, prominent symbol of Amsterdam's ‘progressive’ liberality and permissiveness, has come under heavy fire. The Amsterdam city council has formulated a comprehensive strategy to alter the character of the historic city centre: launched in 2007, Plan 1012 aims to restructure and clean up this inner-city neighbourhood which includes the Wallen, the city's largest redlight district. A strong reduction of window prostitution is one of the spearheads of the restructuring plan. Why have local authorities turned against the red-light district, Amsterdam's great tourist draw, heralded not so long ago as exemplifying a great advancement in the free choice of labour and the long-awaited social acceptance of ‘the world's oldest profession’? As Amsterdam is, and traditionally has been, deeply integrated in the global economy, acting as a prime hub for international flows of people, finance, information, and ideas, this question is here considered within the context of the ever-deepening processes of economic and cultural globalization that profoundly affect Amsterdam's political, economic, and cultural life (Nijman 1999; Taylor 2000; Kratke 2006).
Two significant shifts are taking place against the backdrop of Plan 1012. In local political discourse, window prostitution is increasingly portrayed as a problem, signifying a shift in the way in which the character and (in)appropriate place of prostitution in Amsterdam is imagined by local policymakers and international commentators (Skinner 2008). An increased emphasis on human trafficking, sexual slavery, crime, and violence fuels calls for the drastic curtailment of window prostitution in the district, despite the fact that formal legalization was designed to combat such excesses and that window prostitution can be more successfully regulated than alternative, less visible forms of sex work. Second, the imaginary of Amsterdam itself and its central historic district are shifting. It has been a general trend for some time now that city councils are pressured to promote and brand their cities in a globalizing marketplace. Branding strategies and economic considerations are likely to play a key role in any plan to restructure the centre of a globally well-connected capital (Savitch and Kantor 2002).
fourteen - Feelings of insecurity and young people in housing estates
- Edited by Ronald van Kempen, Karien Dekker, Stephen Hall, Iván Tosics
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- Book:
- Restructuring Large Housing Estates in Europe
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 18 January 2022
- Print publication:
- 30 November 2005, pp 275-298
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Summary
Introduction
Many residents on large housing estates experience feelings of insecurity. Some of the estates have serious problems involving juvenile crime, while on other estates youngsters just hanging around cause feelings of insecurity. Residents and officials label such behaviour as deviant, and apply different types of measures to attempt to decrease the level of insecurity that it causes in a neighbourhood. The solutions to these problems can be divided into environmental (or physical), socialisation, and criminalisation strategies. In this chapter we discuss examples of criminalisation and socialisation strategies in France, the Netherlands, and Poland. The advantages and disadvantages of both strategies are described; by comparing examples from different countries, we assess which are the most successful in dealing with feelings of insecurity. We have taken our examples from three different countries: the Netherlands, where very explicit links are made between young immigrants and feelings of insecurity; France, where this link is also explicit, but where officials are reluctant to discuss it for ideological and political reasons; and Poland, where immigration is not a major issue, but where similar links are made between the presence of young people in public spaces and feelings of insecurity. The issue at stake is not just a problem in these three countries, however: it is also recognised elsewhere. In her widely cited study of housing estates in Europe, Power (1997) noted that issues of insecurity and violence among disaffected youth had become a common problem. In several of the RESTATE reports, similar points are raised. In Italy, for example:
Minor delinquent behaviour such as painting graffiti or breaking windows is common. … Young people do not have many attractions here or places to meet, so they gather in the streets. Their behaviour concerns the rest of the inhabitants, who have no contact with young people and do not connect with their anxieties and needs, but feel that tension between the generations is growing (Mezzetti et al, 2003, p 47).
In Slovenia, ‘the youngsters have taken over the space and the elderly residents complain about their boisterous activities’ that discourage other residents ‘from moving freely in the neighbourhood during the evening hours’ (Černič Mali et al, 2003, pp 43 and 52), while in Germany ‘often young people in the street, especially those from ethnic minorities, are seen as a danger in public space and to be avoided’ (Droste and Knorr-Siedow, 2004, p 47).
five - Privatisation and after
- Edited by Ronald van Kempen, Karien Dekker, Stephen Hall, Iván Tosics
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- Book:
- Restructuring Large Housing Estates in Europe
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 18 January 2022
- Print publication:
- 30 November 2005, pp 85-104
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Summary
Introduction
The previous chapter gave an account of the historical development of large housing estates, referring also to the problems of these estates in the process of their ‘natural’ development. This chapter features a separate discussion of the period of privatisation (starting in the early 1980s in Great Britain and continuing on a large scale in the 1990s in the post-socialist countries), since this highly political process has had a profound effect on the future perspectives of the housing estates in these countries.
As previously outlined, the large housing estates, which are the subject of this book, have a range of elements in common. The estates were built at the same time; they were built by either a local government authority, or the state, or not-for-profit organisations; and they represented contemporary, state-of-the-art, professional architectural and engineering views on residential development. The estates also had their differences: some were the first, or even the only, modern not-for-profit housing available in a period of recovery after the Second World War and in economies with no tradition of social-rented housing; others were a new element in established social- and public-rented housing provision. In these cases the estates did not necessarily offer the most desirable dwellings or locations and this drawback often became more apparent over time. In some cases this generation of public and social-rented housing was targeted at different social groups and had a different place in the policy agenda: rehousing households from urban renewal or slum housing neighbourhoods rather than meeting general housing needs.
All these elements of similarity and difference existed when the estates were built. The standing and quality of these estates, however, is not purely attributable to these initial characteristics. The history of maintenance and repair has affected the quality and attractiveness of the estates. At the same time the characteristics of the households living in the estates has changed and it has been argued that in some countries these estates have been more profoundly affected by the process of residualisation than other estates.
This chapter is concerned with a further element in the changing nature of these estates: the changes in patterns of ownership and control associated with privatisation.