Papers by Filip Stabrowski
City, 2022
In this introductory article, we reflect upon the ambivalences of the term ‘sharing economy’, and... more In this introductory article, we reflect upon the ambivalences of the term ‘sharing economy’, and the disillusionment about its potential to create a space for postcapitalist, peer-to-peer, non-market or more socially intense forms of exchange. We argue that, at the same time, these ambivalences show how the diffusion of sharing practices is open to a variety of different outcomes, and an interesting terrain for exploring the limits and alternatives to (digital) capitalism as we know it. On this basis, we introduce the contents of the Special Feature, whose aim is to explore such limits, focusing in particular on the role that ‘communities’ and ‘crowds’ play in the discursive formation and in the practical operations of digital sharing platforms.
City, 2022
As cities accommodate, resist, and negotiate with the spread of so-called ‘sharing economy’ compa... more As cities accommodate, resist, and negotiate with the spread of so-called ‘sharing economy’ companies, the question of how these businesses actively construct new markets (or sub-markets) through political mobilization and rhetorical strategy has become increasingly salient. This paper explores the ways in which the home-sharing platform Airbnb has sought to carve out a regulatory and discursive space for operation through the political mobilization of its ‘hosts’ in New York City. Based on nearly two years of ethnographic research, the paper argues that host clubs are not merely top-down transmission belts for the company’s political lobbying strategy; beyond political organizing, they are also sites in which the very practices of hosting through Airbnb are affirmed, rehearsed, learned, and debated. On the one hand, Airbnb host clubs are both physical embodiments of, and mechanisms for, the narrative framing of ‘home-sharing’ as a particular kind of economic activity that is more democratic, inclusive, and sustainable than the traditional hospitality industry. On the other hand, Airbnb host clubs reveal and reflect the tensions – between hosts and Airbnb, and among hosts themselves – that persist over the practice of home-sharing. As the calls for tighter regulation and increased penalties for illegal short-term rentals continue to grow, however, the question of whether host clubs constitute a viable mechanism for political mobilization and regulatory reform remains an open one.
The British Journal of Sociology, 2017
American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 2018
Despite the extensive literature on ethnic enclaves in American cities, the role of landed proper... more Despite the extensive literature on ethnic enclaves in American cities, the role of landed property in ethnic enclave formation and transformation has received no attention to date. Drawing upon nearly four years of work as a tenant organizer, I address this issue by examining how the social relations of landed property have been integral to the formation, transformation, and deterioration of ethnic ties among Polish migrants in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Specifically, I argue that the social relations of property among Polish migrantswhat I call "enclave property"-have enabled the acquisition, maintenance, and improvement of landed property in and through the production of ethnicity. With the gentrification of the neighborhood, however, the social relations of immigrant housing that helped produce the enclave in the 1980s and 1990s have been strained, and rising property values have transformed relations of ethnicity among Polish migrants into mechanisms for property accumulation by dispossession. The upshot has been the "hollowing out" of the enclave, as Polish migrant tenants have been displaced from Greenpoint, leaving behind a co-ethnic landlord class and their wealthier American tenants.
Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 2017
Drawing upon Henri Lefebvre’s notion of the production of space and Michael Callon’s work on perf... more Drawing upon Henri Lefebvre’s notion of the production of space and Michael Callon’s work on performativity in economics, this article examines the material and discursive practices through which the internet ‘home-sharing’ platform Airbnb has produced new social relations of domestic property. Through a critical examination of the discourses and practices of Airbnb in the popular media, courts of law and public hearings, I argue that internet-based platforms such as Airbnb represent a fundamental reworking of social relations of property based on radically new socio-material assemblages. These assemblages—which have served to further commoditise housing by constructing a new market in short-term rentals—have entailed the disruption of not just the hospitality sector, but of the socio-spatial relations of urban housing. As emerging spaces of domestic entrepreneurialism, short-term rentals have generated their own forms of localised opposition. With the spread of Airbnb transforming the lived spaces of housing across New York City, a discursive struggle has ensued over the meanings of this new form of domestic property. In the popular press, courts of law and the chambers and steps of city halls, the stakes have been nothing less than the means and ends of urban governance itself.
Antipode, 2014
In response to research that has downplayed or denied the reality of gentrification-induced displ... more In response to research that has downplayed or denied the reality of gentrification-induced displacement, critical urban geographers have called for rethinking the concept of displacement. This article takes up that call by examining the impact of new-build gentrification on the everyday place-making abilities of Polish immigrant tenants in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Based on nearly four years of work as a tenant organizer, this article looks at the forms of "everyday displacement"-the ongoing loss of the agency, freedom, and security to "make place"-experienced by immigrant tenants who struggle to remain in the neighborhood. Drawing upon Lefebvre's spatial triad and Blomley's work on the social relations of property, this article argues that everyday displacement is experienced through the production of new spaces of prohibition, appropriation, and insecurity that constitute a form of neighborhood erasure.
This dissertation will examine the rise and fall of the Polish immigrant enclave of Greenpoint ov... more This dissertation will examine the rise and fall of the Polish immigrant enclave of Greenpoint over the past 30 years (1980 to 2010), focusing on the changing social relations of housing within the Polish immigrant community during this time. Greenpoint today stands at the cusp of disintegration as classic immigrant enclave, with property values and residential and commercial rent levels that prohibit new immigrants from settling, while forcing out many of the old immigrants who did so years ago. The political economy of immigrant housing in Greenpoint, I will argue, was both creator and destroyer of the Polish enclave-engine of its growth and barrier to its further expansion. A central argument of this dissertation is that the housing market is a social construct, embedded within and conditioned by social relations specific to a particular place and time. Though socially-embedded, however, the immigrant housing market is never fully divorced from the wider urban housing market; it is in fact structured by this impersonal market and its imperative to realize profit. There is an ongoing tension or dialectic between two forms of housing relations-one subordinated to the social utility of housing, another driven by the profit motive-that is manifest within any socio-spatial formation. In the pages that follow I will explore this dialectic as it drives the evolving social relations of housing within the Polish immigrant enclave of Greenpoint, where the political economy of immigrant housing has undergone significant and rapid change in the face of a real estate boom, the likes of which New York City-and the country as a whole-has perhaps never seen before.
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2015
A key element of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's New Housing Marketplace program has ... more A key element of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's New Housing Marketplace program has been the use of voluntary inclusionary zoning, through which private developers have been offered tax breaks and density bonuses to develop affordable housing on newly rezoned land. While this program has failed to alleviate the housing affordability crisis in New York City, little attention has been paid to its political effects on community-based struggles over housing. This article addresses this question by examining the 2005 Greenpoint-Williamsburg Waterfront Rezoning, which combined a voluntary inclusionary zoning program with a tenant services contract intended to mitigate the residential displacement effects of the rezoning. I critically examine its design, execution and monitoring, based on two years of work as an organizer and administrator of the tenant services contract. I argue that technologies of consent and control have reshaped the politics of housing in North Brooklyn by replacing resistance to gentrification with amelioration of its effects, through the anticipated creation of affordable housing. The upshot has been an emergent politics of housing in which real estate-led development is regarded not as a cause of gentrification but as its solution.
As cities accommodate, resist, and negotiate with the spread of so-called “sharing economy” compa... more As cities accommodate, resist, and negotiate with the spread of so-called “sharing economy” companies, the question of how these businesses actively construct new markets (or sub-markets) through political mobilization and rhetorical strategy has become increasingly salient. This paper explores the ways in which the home-sharing platform Airbnb has sought to carve out a regulatory and discursive space for operation through the political mobilization of its “hosts” in New York City. Based on nearly two years of ethnographic research, the paper argues that host clubs are not merely top-down transmission belts for the company’s political lobbying strategy; beyond political organizing, they are also sites in which the very practices of hosting through Airbnb are affirmed, rehearsed, learned, and debated. On the one hand, Airbnb host clubs are both physical embodiments of, and mechanisms for, the narrative framing of “home-sharing” as a particular kind of economic activity that is more democratic, inclusive, and sustainable than the traditional hospitality industry. On the other hand, Airbnb host clubs reveal and reflect the tensions – between hosts and Airbnb, and among hosts themselves – that persist over the practice of home-sharing. As the calls for tighter regulation and increased penalties for illegal short-term rentals continue to grow, however, the question of whether host clubs constitute a viable mechanism for political mobilization and regulatory reform remains an open one.
For three months between November 2018 and February 2019, the entire world, it seemed, was watchi... more For three months between November 2018 and February 2019, the entire world, it seemed, was watching Long Island City, Queens. On November 12, 2018, nearly two years after Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced that the company would be holding a contest for its second corporate headquarters (Amazon HQ2), New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo jointly announced that Amazon had selected Long Island City as one of its two HQ2 locations. The project, outlined in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Amazon and New York City and State, would provide up to $3 billion in public (state and city) subsidies to Amazon in exchange for building 4-8 million square feet of office space on the East River waterfront and creating 25,000 jobs averaging $150,000 per year (over ten years). No sooner had the ink dried on the MOU, however, than fierce opposition to the plan quickly emerged. A press conference at the proposed HQ2 site was convened the following day, and local elected officials joined a coalition of local labor and immigrant rights groups vowed to fight the deal. As the buzz (and controversy) concerning Amazon HQ2 continued to grow, Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio announced the formation of a 45-member Community Advisory Committee to "help shape" the plan through "robust community engagement."1 The next two months witnessed a series of public events dedicated to the Amazon plan-including meetings, discussions, teach-ins, city council hearings, canvassing operations, Internet discussion forums, and protests. Then suddenly, on Valentine's Day, in a tersely worded statement that cited the "number of state and local politicians [that] have made it clear that they oppose [Amazon's] presence," Amazon announced that it was no longer planning to build its second headquarters in Long Island City.2 The shock waves from this second surprise decision emerged immediately and continue to reverberate today. Amazon's official announcement notwithstanding, there has been no shortage of blame (or credit) assigned for Amazon's sudden withdrawal from Long Island City. But while we may never know the true reason(s) for this decision, the struggle over the project and Amazon's attempt to control and manage community engagement in the planning process are instructive in their own right. From the arguments that emerged both for and against the Amazon plan we can discern the contours of the emerging struggles over urban
Despite the extensive literature on ethnic enclaves in American cities, the role of landed proper... more Despite the extensive literature on ethnic enclaves in American cities, the role of landed property in ethnic enclave formation and transformation has received no attention to date. Drawing upon nearly four years of work as a tenant organizer, I address this issue by examining how the social relations of landed property have been integral to the formation, transformation, and deterioration of ethnic ties among Polish migrants in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Specifically, I argue that the social relations of property among Polish migrants— what I call " enclave property " —have enabled the acquisition, maintenance, and improvement of landed property in and through the production of ethnicity. With the gentrification of the neighborhood, however, the social relations of immigrant housing that helped produce the enclave in the 1980s and 1990s have been strained, and rising property values have transformed relations of ethnicity among Polish migrants into mechanisms for property accumulation by dispossession. The upshot has been the " hollowing out " of the enclave, as Polish migrant tenants have been displaced from Greenpoint, leaving behind a co-ethnic landlord class and their wealthier American tenants.
Drawing upon Henri Lefebvre's notion of the production of space and Michael Callon's work on perf... more Drawing upon Henri Lefebvre's notion of the production of space and Michael Callon's work on performativity in economics, this article examines the material and discursive practices through which the internet 'home-sharing' platform Airbnb has produced new social relations of domestic property. Through a critical examination of the discourses and practices of Airbnb in the popular media, courts of law and public hearings, I argue that internet-based platforms such as Airbnb represent a fundamental reworking of social relations of property based on radically new socio-material assemblages. These assemblages—which have served to further commoditise housing by constructing a new market in short-term rentals—have entailed the disruption of not just the hospitality sector, but of the socio-spatial relations of urban housing. As emerging spaces of domestic entrepreneurialism, short-term rentals have generated their own forms of localised opposition. With the spread of Airbnb transforming the lived spaces of housing across New York City, a discursive struggle has ensued over the meanings of this new form of domestic property. In the popular press, courts of law and the chambers and steps of city halls, the stakes have been nothing less than the means and ends of urban governance itself.
A key element of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's New Housing Mar ketplace program has be... more A key element of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's New Housing Mar ketplace program has been the use of voluntary inclusionary zoning, through which private developers have been offered tax breaks and density bonuses to develop affordable housing on newly rezoned land. While this program has failed to alleviate the housing affordability crisis in New York City, little attention has been paid to its political effects on communitybased struggles over housing. This article addresses this question by exam ining the 2005 GreenpointWilliamsburg Waterfront Rezoning, which combined a volun tary inclusionary zoning program with a tenant services contract intended to mitigate the residential displacement effects of the rezoning. I critically examine its design, execution and monitoring, based on two years of work as an organizer and administrator of the tenant services contract. I argue that technologies of consent and control have reshaped the politics of housing in North Brooklyn by replacing resistance to gentrification with amelioration of its effects, through the anticipated creation of affordable housing. The upshot has been an emergent politics of housing in which real estateled development is regarded not as a cause of gentrification but as its solution.
In response to research that has downplayed or denied the reality of gentrification-induced displ... more In response to research that has downplayed or denied the reality of gentrification-induced displacement, critical urban geographers have called for rethinking the concept of displacement. This article takes up that call by examining the impact of new-build gentrification on the everyday place-making abilities of Polish immigrant tenants in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Based on nearly four years of work as a tenant organizer, this article looks at the forms of “everyday displacement” – the ongoing loss of the agency, freedom, and security to “make place” – experienced by immigrant tenants who struggle to remain in the neighborhood. Drawing upon Lefebvre’s spatial triad and Blomley’s work on the social relations of property, this article argues that everyday displacement is experienced through the production of new spaces of prohibition, appropriation, and insecurity that constitute a form of neighborhood erasure.
Book Reviews by Filip Stabrowski
British Journal of Sociology
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Papers by Filip Stabrowski
Book Reviews by Filip Stabrowski