Housing in the Margins

Housing in the Margins is a rich and original empirical data on the governance of housing precarity at the periphery of Berlin.

• One of the few discussions of urban informality in Euro-American cities
• An empirical exploration of the governance of housing precarity in Berlin
• A novel theoretical approach to understanding the nexus of informality and the state
• An innovative account of urban development in Berlin that bridges analytical divides between debates about Northern and Southern states
• A theoretical understanding of the ways in which negotiations and transgressions are embedded in the making of urban order
• A historically informed narrative of the development of allotments in Berlin

Auteur

Hanna Hilbrandt is assistant professor of social and cultural geography at the University of Zurich. Her research explores marginality and exclusion in housing and urban development as well as socio-spatial inequalities in the context of global economic restructuring. Focusing predominantly on Mexico City and Berlin, her work pays close attention to the everyday politics of city-making and the structural constraints in which such practises are inscribed.

Contenu

List of Illustrations vi

Series Editors' Preface vii

Acknowledgements viii

1. Introduction: Housing in the Entanglements of Formality, Informality, and the State 1

2. Negotiating Formalities: Informality and the Everyday State 15

3. Footnotes on the History of Housing: Allotment Dwelling in Berlin, 1871-2019 31

4. Housing in the Margins: Halfway Between Exclusion and Homeownership 54

5. The Colony and the Turf: Planning and the Politics of Land Use Change 76

6. Constellations of Consent: Navigating the Politics of Regulatory Enforcement 97

7. Working the Legal Threshold: Regulation, Translation, and Boundary Work 116

8. Conclusion: The "Gallic Village" 134

Glossary of German Terms 144

References 146

Index 173