Alternatives to demolition: the experiences of managing social housing vacancy in shrinking cities in France

Research on urban decline management policies in Western Europe have highlighted the important role played by housing associations in coalitions of local players. However, little attention has been paid to the impact of urban shrinkage on the activities of social landlords. Based on a corpus of interviews conducted with 20 SHOs located in shrinking cities, this article deals with the strategies implemented by French social housing organizations to cope with housing vacancy. By exploring vacancy not only as an urban indicator of shrinkage but also as the product of actors’ strategies, this article aims to contribute in two ways to research on housing policies. Firstly, we show that while international literature has well documented demolition practices, they are part of integrated strategies to fight vacancy that also mobilize the development of new housing units and specific housing stock management practices. Secondly, the analysis of vacancy management strategies in contexts of urban shrinkage constitutes a privileged fieldwork for updating 1980s and 1990s research on the management of low demand by social housing organizations. We show that the general shift to managerialism since the 1980 have transformed vacancy management, not only by making additional tools available, but also by framing vacancy as a market problem.