Regulating Housing Environments

Description

So far in class, we’ve focused largely on how policy impacts housing at a collective, rather than individual level. At the same time, policy and regulations reach inside our individual homes, typically in order to address fundamental issues of health, safety, and welfare. During this week, we’ll explore two particular cases that highlight ways in which our individual relationships to housing are regulated - residential pests and pest control and residential code enforcement - to explore the types of tradeoffs we see in the outcomes these regulations produce.

Discussants

Margaret

Learning Goals

  • Become familiar with household-scale regulations and regulatory institutions.
  • Critically examine how such institutions balance enforcement and agency.
  • Understand the social, political, and economic challenges associated with code enforcement.

Readings

Dawn Biehler - Permeable Homes: A Historical Political Ecology of Insects and Pesticides in Public Housing

Daniel Schneider - They’re Back: Municipal Responses to the Resurgence of Bed Bug Infestations

Robin Bartram - Cracks in Broken Windows: How Objects Shape Professional Evaluation

Local Housing Solutions - Housing Code Enforcement

Slides

Additional Resources

  • Cities for Responsible Investment and Strategic Enforcement, The Power & Proximity of Code Enforcement: A Tool for Equitable Neighborhoods

  • The Cost of Being Crime Free