Who owns France? Uncovering the structure of property ownership for a better understanding of the socio-spatial distribution of wealth

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the structure of French property ownership and shows how it is crucial input to understand the socio-spatial distribution of wealth and inequalities in cities. To date only partial information exists on this given that we are in a period of financial opacity. In this paper, we provide a theoretical framework to analyze the structure of property ownership. It is defined by four dimensions: the distribution of properties among different categories of owners, the spatial patterns of the properties held by these categories, their estimated financial value, and their concentration within the categories—the latter not studied here, for legal and confidentiality reasons. Drawing on unpublished cadastral data on property owners and property transaction prices, we carry out an empirical analysis which reveals the dominance of household and public ownership, contrasting with the marginal position of private investors. Despite the fact that the structure of ownership is fairly uniform throughout the urban hierarchy, some groups of owners do however hold strategically located properties. Our results show the embeddedness of the property ownership in different accumulation regimes, and relativize any consideration of financialization or neoliberalism as a global all-encompassing framework when analyzing real estate property.