Shared housing for students and young professionals: evolution of a market in need of regulation
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Shared housing for students and young professionals: evolution of a market in need of regulation Constance Uyttebrouck1 · Ellen van Bueren2 · Jacques Teller1 Received: 9 December 2019 / Accepted: 10 August 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract This research addresses the shared housing market, that is, large-scale developments targeting students and ‘young professionals’, equipped with shared spaces and services for the residents. This housing segment has emerged in response to young adults’ demand for flexible and affordable housing. It has developed in cities that concentrate students and young single professionals, plan densification strategies and face housing commodification. We specifically explore the production side of this market, through the comparison of two projects in Amsterdam. Our objective is to understand the institutional context in which these projects were developed and their outcomes. Consequently, the research questions are: which actors develop these projects, what instruments do they use, and what are the outcomes in a commodifying housing market? From our analysis, the actors need to collaborate on shared housing developments and receive support from local governments, through the strategic use of planning instruments and tenure regulations. However, the shared facilities seem to merely serve to commercialize small housing production, while housing affordability and accessibility are threatened. We, thus, recommend local and national authorities to regulate the provision of shared spaces and suggest further research on the effects of the shared housing market in cities facing housing commodification. Keywords Commodification · Institutional framework · Regulation · Shared housing · Young professionals
1 Introduction This research addresses a new form of shared housing, the shared housing market, that is, large-scale developments delivering a substantial number of small housing units (up to 900 units starting from 25 m2 in this study), equipped with shared spaces and services (e.g., libraries, working spaces) for the residents. This emerging housing segment has been * Constance Uyttebrouck [email protected] 1
Urban and Environmental Engineering Department, University of Liège, B52, 9 allée de la Découverte, 4000 Liège, Belgium
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Department of Management in the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands
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increasingly supported by local governments and generally targets students (e.g., Thomsen 2007) and ‘young professionals’ (Druta and Ronald 2020; Kemp 2011). The latter are young (commonly defined as aged 20 to 34), often single and highly-educated adults, who are in the early stages of their careers and are expected to be flexible and mobile for their work (Bergan et al. 2020; Heath and Kenyon 2001). Shared housing providers do not necessarily exclude other target groups, but the focus is implicitly reflected in the tenant demographic (Bergan et al. 2020). In response to young profes
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