Wer oder was lässt meine Mieten steigen? - (Irr)Wege der Gentrifizierungskritik

In the organizer's words:

The consequences of market-organized housing are clearly causing considerable stress for many tenants with incessantly rising rents, expensive modernization or structural defects due to a lack of maintenance. While conservatives and liberals are looking for solutions to the housing shortage in the existing system, left-wing politicians, researchers and activists from the rental movement, on the other hand, usually claim to be fundamentally critical of the conditions on the housing market. However, the criticism voiced usually does not live up to this claim and is itself subject to illusions and shortcuts.

The lecture will use various examples to identify common elements that stand in the way of a critique of gentrification that is appropriate to the subject matter. Blaming individuals or the financial sector for grievances, appealing to the common good and criticizing self-interest, looking to the state for the solution or naively believing that the right policies need to be put in place to solve the problems are all pseudo-criticisms that do not reflect the underlying capital relationship and the role of the state and often reinforce resentment.

Marius Strohdiek is studying for a master's degree in economic and social geography with a focus on urban spaces at Leipzig University and has been a student assistant in the research project "Who owns Connewitz?" at the Institute of Regional Science at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) since 2020. His focus is on the examination of superficial criticism of capitalism in general and gentrification criticism in particular, as well as the criticism of anti-Semitism.