IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/socinc/v3y2015i2p17-30.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reconceptualizing the “Publicness” of Public Housing: The Case of Brussels

Author

Listed:
  • Nele Aernouts

    (Cosmopolis Centre for Urban Research, Department of Geography, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium)

  • Michael Ryckewaert

    (Cosmopolis Centre for Urban Research, Department of Geography, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium)

Abstract

This article brings together various spatial and political theorizations on the commons as a broader project to understand multiple dimensions of the inclusive nature of public housing. By picking up theorizations on the commons, the article feeds the debate on the loss of “publicness” of public housing and removes attention from what is seen as a state related business. Four core-dimensions are identified: ownership, participation, community activity and physical configuration. The article takes a sample of public housing estates in the Brussels capital region as case studies to test the capacity of this framework to detect the degree of “publicness” of various forms of public housing. The preliminary results—based on this limited sample of cases studied through interviews with privileged informers and a literature study—suggest that approaches where individual households are actively involved in the organization of the dwelling environment work best to compensate for the loss of “publicness” that has occurred since the decline of the welfare state. In that respect, these approaches tie in with some early predecessors of “public” housing, mainly cooperatively organized garden city developments. Further in-depth case study research should shed more light on the validity of this hypothesis, as well as on the precise mechanisms and features that determine this regained “publicness”.

Suggested Citation

  • Nele Aernouts & Michael Ryckewaert, 2015. "Reconceptualizing the “Publicness” of Public Housing: The Case of Brussels," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 3(2), pages 17-30.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:socinc:v:3:y:2015:i:2:p:17-30
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/article/view/63
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pascal De Decker & Christian Kesteloot & Filip De Maesschalck & Jan Vranken, 2005. "Revitalizing the City in an Anti‐Urban Context: Extreme Right and the Rise of Urban Policies in Flanders, Belgium," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(1), pages 152-171, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dallas Rogers & Rae Dufty-Jones & Wendy Steele, 2015. "Housing and Socio-Spatial Inclusion," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 3(2), pages 01-5.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Justus Uitermark, 2014. "Integration and Control: The Governing of Urban Marginality in Western Europe," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(4), pages 1418-1436, July.
    2. Pascal De Decker, 2011. "Understanding Housing Sprawl: The Case of Flanders, Belgium," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 43(7), pages 1634-1654, July.
    3. Wouter P.C. van Gent & Elmar F. Jansen & Joost H.F. Smits, 2014. "Right-wing Radical Populism in City and Suburbs: An Electoral Geography of the Partij Voor de Vrijheid in the Netherlands," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(9), pages 1775-1794, July.
    4. Sven De Visscher & Maria Bouverne‐De Bie, 2008. "Recognizing Urban Public Space as a Co‐Educator: Children's Socialization in Ghent," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3), pages 604-616, September.
    5. Maarten Loopmans, 2008. "Relevance, Gentrification and the Development of a New Hegemony on Urban Policies in Antwerp, Belgium," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 45(12), pages 2499-2519, November.
    6. Filip De Maesschalck, 2011. "The Politicisation of Suburbanisation in Belgium," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(4), pages 699-717, March.
    7. Nicolas Van Puymbroeck & Paul Blondeel & Robin Vandevoordt, 2014. "Does Antwerp Belong to Everyone? Unveiling the Conditional Limits to Inclusive Urban Citizenship," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 2(3), pages 018-028.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:socinc:v:3:y:2015:i:2:p:17-30. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.