Urbanities,
Vol. 4
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No 1
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May 2014
© 2014
Urbanities
3
At the Intersection of Identity and Finance:
Redefining Value Through the Lens of Affordable Home-ownership
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Jill Siegel
(University of Pennsylvania)
This article analyses how new economic and financial practices shape subjectivities and socialities, in two domains
of identity: the renter/owner/co-op owner and race/ethnicity/class/gender. I argue for the inextricable (and mutually
constitutive) links between the valuations of property and the valuations of people. Through two years of
ethnographic analysis of a low-income ownership programme in New York City, I examine how co-op’s residents’
experiences in a housing environment whose value is partially screened from the speculative housing market can
reveal new insights into housing and the capitalist urban processes.
Keywords:
Housing, New York, race and ethnicity, class, gender, value
Introduction
Why does the American ideal of homeownership remain so strongly entrenched in the global
collective psyche despite overwhelming proof of its political, economic and social costs? In the
current era in which the neoliberal ideology of private ownership prevails, inherent is the idea
that owners are more responsible, productive members of society than renters (Basolo 2007;
Saegert et al. 2009). In the US, the term ‘homeowner’ is typically associated with private
homeownership of a single-family dwelling. This renter/owner stereotype is so persuasive that it
holds true in a place like New York City, where, even in the Upper East Side, the country’s
wealthiest neighbourhood, 70% of residents are renters (Angotti 2006).
This form of property ownership is not working for a great number of people. In this
article, I examine through a detailed analysis of an affordable housing cooperative conceptions of
property relations among low-income, urban people of colour as they transition to
homeownership. I also consider the role of the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB),
a 35-year-old non-profit organization in New York City, that assists renters in their
transformation into cooperative homeowners. I explore how residents negotiate their new roles as
collective owners, rather than individual renters, as well as how these new economic and
financial practices shape subjectivities and socialities.
Limited Equity Cooperatives (LECs)
Limited equity cooperatives (LECs) are housing cooperatives in which residents own shares of a
building, while the resale value of shares is limited to preserve affordability for future generations
of purchasers (Saegert and Benítez 2003). All co-ops UHAB helps create are LECs to ensure the
long-term sustainability of affordable housing. Co-ops are a difficult concept to understand, since
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I would like to thank my advisor Dr John L. Jackson, Jr. for his guidance and support and Dr Amelia
Weinreb for her editorial assistance.
