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Abstract
How can tenants affect housing policy? This paper compares rental housing politics in Los Angeles (USA) and Berlin (Germany) between 2008-2020 by examining how political processes influenced policy. It serves as a case of the emergence, escalation, and impact of tenant power. Tenant movement organizations employed five mechanisms to affect policymaking: (1) making demands, (2) forming coalitions, (3) promoting referendums, (4) engaging government officials in dialogue, and (5) transferring agents to government. The paper draws on multiple data sources, including interviews and participant observation over ten years. The cities witnessed policy episodes with four parallel characteristics: (1) locally progressive and regionally moderate, (2) shifting from defensive to offensive, (3) shifting from particular to universal, and (4) signs of a breakthrough beyond neoliberal housing policymaking. The findings suggest that the rise of tenant movements and their allies help drive policy change via multiple channels, exhibiting both similarities and differences across cities, especially in terms of money power and people power.
Acknowledgements
This article improved significantly via feedback from my colleagues. Thanks to Chris Tilly, Jutta Allmendinger, Margit Mayer, Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Antonie Schmiz, Paavo Monkkonen, Andrej Holm, Allan Heskin, H. Bryan Card, Johannes Riedner, Jan Breidenbach, Greg Preston, Janina Dobrusskin, Sam Stein, Jason Spicer, Joseph Pierce, and three anonymous reviewers. Thanks for funding from the Haynes Foundation, Study Foundation of the Berlin House of Representatives, DAAD: German Academic Exchange Service, and the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Mistakes are my own.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 ‘Vacancy control’ constitutes a type of restriction on rental prices, whereby when a unit is ‘vacated’ it retains some form of price adjustment restraints. Thus, ‘vacancy decontrol’ allows landlords to increase rental prices, without restriction, upon vacancy.
2 For recent developments on how tenant movement organizations impact urban life see Michener & SoRelle (Citation2022).
3 Participant observation included paid and unpaid work with housing rights organizations and co-teaching community engaged projects on housing.
4 TMOs here could be either legal entities or not, but groups with an established and long-running collective identity, vision for change, and action.
5 For example, in Berlin ‘Gentrification Blog’, https://gentrificationblog.wordpress.com/ and ‘Knock LA’ in Los Angeles https://knock-la.com/. Podcasts in California include ‘Renter Power Hour’, https://soundcloud.com/renterpowerhour; in Berlin ‘From People and Rents’ (‘Von Menschen und Mieten’) by Expropriate DW & Co, https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/von-menschen-und-mieten/id1555028798. Educational video ‘Cancel Rent & Mortgage Policy Platform’ from Healthy LA, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaIvmwf6RFE&t=3s&ab_channel=LAForwardAction. All Accessed on 5 November 2021.
6 For more on contained versus transgressive dynamics, see McAdam et al. (Citation2001, p. 6).
7 January 11 2018, Outside Sacramento Capitol (Smith, Citation2018).
8 See California Secretary of State info on Referendums: https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-measures/referendum last accessed on 19 June 2021.
9 California has allowed local rent regulation since the state Supreme Court ruled in the case Birkenfeld v. City of Berkeley (1976). 17 Cal 3rd 129 that the state did not occupy the field of rent regulation and that local jurisdictions can adopt rent control.
10 Many of my interviewees (including lobbyists and government officials) interpreted Newsom’s leadership on the issue directly in response to other states’ policy adoption.
11 Center-right national coalition included the Christian Democratic Union, Christian Social Union, and Social Democratic Party.
12 Tweet by ‘Asociación de Inquilinos de Hillside Villa’ 山景園租戶協會, @hillside_villa, on September 24 2021: https://twitter.com/hillside_villa/status/1441244908954669061 Accessed on 6 November 2021.
13 ‘Bonin pushes ‘Homes Guarantee LA,’ https://11thdistrict.com/news/bonin-pushes-homes-guarantee-la/ accessed on 16 October 2021.
14 List of legislation ‘approved,’ ‘previously introduced and in process,’ and ‘being introduced’ on Mike Bonin’s Homes Guarantee LA website: https://11thdistrict.com/HomesGuaranteeLA/ Accessed on 6 November 2021.
15 Deutsche Wohnen is one of the largest private institutional landlords in Berlin.
16 During conference ‘For a Right to Housing from New York to Berlin,’ hosted by Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, April 28 2021.
17 The measurement of people power here differs from a broader model laid out by Tattersall & Iveson (Citation2022).
18 California Secretary of State, Ballot Measure Total Contributions, Proposition 10, https://www.sos.ca.gov/campaign-lobbying/cal-access-resources/measure-contributions/2018-ballot-measure-contribution-totals/17-0041-expands-local-governments-authority-enact-rent-control-residential-property-initiative-statute and Proposition 21 https://www.sos.ca.gov/campaign-lobbying/cal-access-resources/measure-contributions/2020-ballot-measure-contribution-totals/proposition-21-expands-local-governments-authority-enact-rent-control-residential-property-initiative-statute.
19 State Election Commissioner for Berlin (Landeswahlleiterin für Berlin): https://www.berlin.de/wahlen/spenden/deutsche-wohnen-und-co-enteignen/ accessed on 12 October 2021.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Kenton Card
Kenton Card is a PhD Candidate, teacher, and filmmaker in the Department of Urban Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is currently a Doctoral Fellow at the Berlin House of Representatives, the Haynes Foundation in Los Angeles, and formerly a Dissertation Research Grantee from the German Academic Exchange Service. In Berlin, he is a Guest Scholar at the Freie Universität Berlin and a Visiting Researcher at the Berlin Social Science Research Center. His latest film ‘Geographies of Racial Capitalism with Ruth Wilson Gilmore’ was released by the Antipode Foundation.