Market-Based Housing Reforms and the Residualization of Public Housing: The Experience of Lodz, Poland

Abstract

Housing inequality is one of the central topics in urban studies, and in the social sciences more broadly. It is also one of the most significant and visible aspects of socioeconomic inequality. Over the last three decades, the process of housing commodification has accelerated across western societies and, consequently, the public housing sector has contracted and become more closely associated with the poorest sections of societies in many cities. Over the same period, the political changes in Central and Eastern Europe have contributed to the dismantling and monetizing of state housing sectors at the forefront of broader social and economic transformations. Unfortunately, most recent studies on housing commodification and inequalities in Europe are confined to the national scale. The aim of this article is to detail the linkages between the position and functioning of public housing in Lodz (Poland) and the evolving socioeconomic profile of individuals and households that rely on public housing. This study relies on microdata (statistical information on individuals and households) from two national Polish censuses (1978 and 2002) and from household budget surveys (2003–2013). The main finding of our study is that ‘residualization’ is present in the public housing stock in Lodz and that the process gained momentum in the first decade of the 2000s.

A Window Into the European City: Exploring Socioeconomic Residential Segregation in Urban Poland

“…This finding further emphasizes the need for any explanation of segregation patterns to be informed by an appropriate assessment of the characteristics of local context. In the Polish case, the presence of public housing, in contrast to cooperative and/or private housing, signalled low neighbourhood social status already under late socialism (Węcławowicz 1996; Marcińczak & Sagan 2011), and the depleted public housing stock was preserved predominantly in low (or low‐to‐middle) social status tracts (Ogrodowczyk & Marcińczak 2021).…”

“…This finding further emphasizes the need for any explanation of segregation patterns to be informed by an appropriate assessment of the characteristics of local context. In the Polish case, the presence of public housing, in contrast to cooperative and/or private housing, signalled low neighbourhood social status already under late socialism (Węcławowicz 1996;Marcińczak & Sagan 2011), and the depleted public housing stock was preserved predominantly in low (or low-to-middle) social status tracts (Ogrodowczyk & Marcińczak 2021). Fourth, despite the increased commodification and income-orientation of the housing market, and even though a housing affordability crisis has been escalating since the early 2000s, the volume of new housing construction influences segregation in a way that contrasts with how these phenomena interact in the United States (Watson et al 2006;Watson 2009).…”

“…2021). As elsewhere in ECE (Lux & Sunega 2014), the process of public housing residualization has been ongoing in Poland since the mid‐1990s, and the remaining public housing stock tends to be located in low social status neighbourhoods (Ogrodowczyk & Marcińczak 2021). This should come as no surprise, as the presence of public housing was a pervasive characteristic of lower‐status neighbourhoods already during late socialism and the following decade (Marcińczak & Sagan 2011).…”

Physical Environment, Socio-Psychological Health, and Residential Satisfaction: A Link across Housing Types in the Unique Chinese Context

“…Housing inequality caused by governmental housing regimes lies at the root of socio-spatial segregation and exclusion in most cases [1][2][3][4][5][6]. This issue has been increasingly recognized as a corrodent to the social resiliency of cities and is a threat to human health [7][8][9] and people's life satisfaction [10][11][12][13][14].…”