Housing Identities: At the Roots of Presentday Belonging’s Uneasiness

Abstract

The paper assesses housing as a global issue affecting wide sectors of societies not just in less developed countries. Trends and cases show the crucial role that building industry cycles have played in the financialization of the economy and its speculative side effects, even in sectors presented as alternatives to mainstream production, as the sharing economy. We are, therefore, experiencing a radical change today in the meanings attached to terms like city, identity, rights, and growing inequalities affecting ever-larger shares of the population. When the fundamental human right to housing is denied the social bonds and trust on which citizenship relies is lost.