Housing as a site of accumulation in Amsterdam and the creation of surplus populations

Abstract

Many major cities around the world have undergone a steep housing price appreciation in recent years, creating windfall profits for some, while for others, the costs of living have risen considerably faster than their income. The resulting social stratification effects have received much scholarly scrutiny, and also raised discussions on whether or not we have to abandon ‘older models’ of class. By extending Marx's notion of surplus populations from primary work-related exploitation to housing-centred secondary exploitation, this article argues that older models are perfectly equipped to account for the various strata of 'asset-haves' and 'asset-have-nots'. Focusing in particular on the 'asset-have-nots’, the article utilizes the Dutch city of Amsterdam as a case study to illustrate how the acceleration of housing as a site of accumulation not only co-creates surplus populations but also an increasing share of people who find themselves at the frontiers of becoming surplus populations.The city of Amsterdam is particularly interesting as it has undergone one of the highest and most rapid real estate price increases in Europe in recent years, which has not only decreased the affordability and accessibility of housing for the low- but increasingly also middle-income strata. The article shows that the accelerated accumulation in the realm of housing, and the concomitant creation of surplus populations, are not mechanical law-like regularities of financialised capitalism. Instead, various forms of state regulation have facilitated and mediated the scale, timing and the way in which overaccumulated surplus capital has been absorbed through housing.