MATISSE · Post-crisis urban transformations in Athens and Barcelona; a comparative approach
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2019-05-01 → 2021-08-29
- EU contribution
- €195,455
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Post-crisis urban transformations in Athens and Barcelona; a comparative approach
The project MATISSE was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action funded by the Horizon 2020 and it was hosted by the School of Geography, University of Leeds from May 2019 until August 2021 (grant agreement 79561). Inspired from dialogues in Critical Urban Studies, Urban Political Economy and Social and Spatial Justice, this project looked into the process of housing financialisation in Greece and in Spain, by exploring comparatively the cities of Athens and Barcelona. It investigated austerity policies, the investment strategies of transnational investors in Spain and Greece and the consequences this has for households facing housing unaffordability pressures. More precisely, MATISSE’s research objectives were to: (i) understand how policies of debt and restructuring are redefining property markets at the local level; (ii) trace investment strategies of transnational investors and their practices as credit and home-owners; and, (iii) ascertain the social and spatial implications for people when homes as mortgages, or austerity-induced debt, are auctioned or bought by transnational investors. It involved an interdisciplinary research action with policy implications for the governance of inclusive, innovative, and reflective societies, fully responding to the challenges set out in the Horizon 2020 ‘Societal challenges’ programme.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Nearly a decade after its outbreak, the shockwaves of the 2008 global crisis remain omnipresent in Southern Europe. Rapid political, economic and institutional transformations have triggered the reshuffling of housing. Within this framework, transnational investors are entering local property markets, purchasing repossessed houses and/ or non-performing loans. Spain and Greece, and their major cities Barcelona and Athens, are two outstanding but contrasting examples of this socio-political and spatial restructuring. They provide crucial theoretical, methodological and analytical challenges for urban studies and a key opportunity for the development of a novel comparative-relational approach to learn about the local consequences of the strategies of these global actors. The project MATISSE will address three lines of inquiry, looking into: (i) which are the policies encouraging housing financialisation (ii) who are the transnational investors and; (iii) which are the social and spatial implications of such property restructuring. It will bring together an interdisciplinary approach based on a two-way knowledge transfer between the ER’s (Dr Georgia Alexandri) existing research in urban restructuring in Spain and Greece with the Supervisor’s (Dr Stuart Hodkinson) extensive experience and research expertise in housing financialisation, privatisation and corporate mapping.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS · LeedsCoordinatorUnited Kingdom
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union