Lords and Tenants? Contested Citizenship and Residential Property in Europe and the United States Since 2008

The 2008 financial crisis was a watershed moment for European housing systems. In its wake, residential property regimes across the continent have shifted away from homeownership and social housing toward an intensified role of private rental markets. This shift in housing commodification has exacerbated what is referred to here as “property polarization,” a dynamic marked by deepening inequalities in wealth and wellbeing between housing tenure groups. Tenants, particularly those on the socioeconomic margins, face increasing precariousness, while landlords benefit from economic and social insulation. This paper examines these dynamics through the lens of Tilly and Tarrow’s concept of contentious politics, framing housing as a key site of class formation and contested citizenship. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and cross-sectional data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) and the American Housing Survey from 2007 to 2022, the study identifies clear gradients of housing inequality, shaped primarily by tenure type, socioeconomic status, and national citizenship. Within this context, residential property relations have emerged as a critical field where competing claims over housing rights and resources manifest starkly. Our analysis highlights the role of institutional settings in sustaining these divides, as the commodification of housing reinforces the privileges of landlords while marginalizing tenants. Cross-national comparisons illustrate how these tensions vary, with countries like Spain, the Netherlands and the United States showing associations between rising landlordism and greater income and health inequalities, while others, such as Greece, have experienced generalized impoverishment. However, by drawing on the framework of contentious politics, this paper points to the potential of collective action—most notably tenant and social syndicalism—to reconfigure the landlord-tenant relationship and advance housing justice in the countries studied.