This study proposes a conceptual framework for examining contemporary housing conditions through the lens of 21st-century urbanism. Drawing from a selection of influential texts, it systematically identifies and synthesizes key theoretical concepts into a set of recurring idea clusters. These clusters are then distilled into concise statements that illuminate core issues shaping the current housing discourse.
01. PREMISE
This literature review aimed to develop a conceptual framework for understanding contemporary housing crisis through an analysis of theoretical texts. The study’s foundation rests on Madden and Marcuse’s “In Defense of Housing” (2016), which presents a fundamental re framing of housing crisis. Rather than viewing current conditions as system failure, they argue that the housing system functions exactly as intended – a structural mechanism rooted in commodification and driven by profit imperatives. The book’s analysis of housing’s political economy in North America and Europe reveals how market forces systematically transform housing from social right into financial asset, providing the theoretical groundwork for examining contemporary housing conditions.
Methodological Objectives
- To identify and extract key variables characterizing contemporary housing crisis.
- To examine how these variables have been theoretically explored in existing literature.
- To analyze the relationships between these variables across different scales and contexts.
Building on Madden and Marcuse’s foundation, the research expanded through analysis of eleven scholarly works across urban studies, economics, geography, and sociology. Each text contributed distinct perspectives on housing phenomena and their social implications, allowing for a comprehensive mapping of contemporary housing conditions.
02. CORE THEMES
From this systematic analysis emerged twenty concept clusters, each structured to reveal the complex dynamics of housing crisis. Each concept cluster consists of a central umbrella term supported by 2-3 satellite concepts. These satellite concepts were structured to reveal:
- The fundamental condition or problem related to the core term.
- Its consequential impacts or outcomes.
- The systemic mechanisms that maintain this condition.
03. SYNTHESIS
The concepts were mapped diagrammatically and classified by both their:
- Disciplinary affiliation
- Mode of operation (Process, State of Being, or Physical Artifact) and
- Their scale of impact (from Individual to Territorial).
This systematic organization enabled the formulation of precise statements describing current housing conditions.
04. PRELIMINARY CONCLUSIONS
The synthesized statements were then analyzed for recurring themes and patterns, with related concepts grouped according to shared keywords and similar theoretical implications.
The analysis crystallized into three interconnected themes:
- The systematic erosion of agency through isolation and dispossession;
- The use of development rhetoric to mask displacement; and
- The emergence of commons-based alternatives as resistance.
The re-emergence of commons as a theme reveals a fascinating tension in contemporary housing resistance. While representing a collective response to systemic housing crisis, it simultaneously embodies a form of strategic isolation – creating a paradox where communities must partially separate to build connection. This tension between isolation as systemic control versus isolation as protective communing raises critical questions about how alternative residential logics can effectively challenge dominant housing systems while avoiding the reproduction of fragmentary patterns they seek to resist.
