Raffael Beier
Biographic Data
| ID | 356012 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Raffael Beier |
| GIVEN NAMES | Raffael |
| FAMILY NAME | Beier |
| SIGNATURE | BEIER R |
| AFFILIATIONS | TU Dortmund University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9772-2293 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 20 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Affordable housing, finance and the state: Towards a global urban comparison
The scale of the 21st-century urban housing challenge has prompted state actors in both the Global North and South to adopt increasingly interventionist approaches to ‘affordable’ housing production. This article draws on research in six cities (Shanghai, Nairobi, Paris, Casablanca, Salford and Rome) to discuss the changing relationship between housing, finance and the state through a global comparative perspective. It adopts an urban statecraft …
The Missing People of State‐subsidized Housing: Lived Experiences of Non‐Occupancy and Secondary Residential Mobility
Large‐scale, state‐subsidized housing programmes have experienced a renaissance in Africa, Asia and Latin America, but provoke justified concerns about whether they miss their target groups. Unaffordability, lack of choice, peripheral locations and under‐serviced sites are common problems. Ultimately, many subsidized units are not occupied by their intended recipients. Most authors see this as a form of gentrification or downward‐raiding, whereby…
The occupation of state housing as a moral obligation? Housing welfare in Gauteng between reciprocity and liberalism
The article analyses how political stakeholders have mobilized a moralizing discourse to blame practices of renting and selling state-subsidized housing by its original recipients. Although departures are mostly legal, owners who do not occupy their units are affected by the state's moral expectations of reciprocity that extend ambiguous moral claims towards the right use of provided housing far beyond the law. First, we show how the post-aparthe…
The End of Inclusive Resettlement: Experiencing Unaffordability within State Housing Programmes in Salé, Morocco
Since the early 2000s, Morocco’s government is running the Villes Sans Bidonville programme (VSBP) as a literal reference to international policy claims for Cities Without Slums . Initially and in contrast to past, unsuccessful attempts to eradicate the country’s bidonvilles , more inclusive resettlement schemes – participatory and affordable for all – should help to avoid that residents resell resettlement housing and move back to bidonvilles . …
Housing Pathways of the “Missing People” of Public Housing and Resettlement Programs: Methodological Reflections
This article deals with methodological challenges and presents solutions for the study of people who depart from state-subsidized housing in Ethiopia, Morocco, and South Africa. Having sold or rented out their units, these people have left and now live at dispersed locations. Assuming that many “missing people” leave state housing because of project-related shortcomings, studying the reasons for their departure is crucial to understanding standar…
Displaced but happy? Making sense of shantytown dwellers’ divergent views and experiences of resettlement in Casablanca
While researchers have observed a global rise in displacement, many countries in the Global South have set up large-scale housing programmes, aiming to ensure access for all to ‘affordable’ and ‘adequate’ housing. For residents of Casablanca’s shantytowns, this has created a paradoxical situation—enhanced displacement threats and hopes to be soon moving into a higher-quality home. The situation challenges common conceptualisations of displacement…
Why low-income people leave state housing in South Africa: Progress, failure or temporary setback
The delivery of houses for homeownership to low-income urban dwellers has been a cornerstone of post-apartheid policies fighting both land and socioeconomic inequalities in South Africa. In this context, policy stakeholders and scholars have been puzzled by housing beneficiaries who leave their state houses, either selling or letting them. On the one hand, this might signal upward mobility where “leavers” successfully integrate into the housing m…
Ordinary neighbourhoods
Emphasising implicit assumptions behind our ways of seeing ‘slums’, this essay calls for a radical understanding of ‘ordinary neighbourhoods’. Borrowing from Robinson’s ‘ordinary cities’ concept, it conceptualises ‘ordinariness’ as a way of rejecting the ‘absolute otherness’ of slums, stressing heterogeneity within and between neighbourhoods as well as the significance of comparative empirical research. Beyond the need for alternative, less stigm…
From Visible Informality to Splintered Informalities: Reflections on the Production of 'Formality' in a Moroccan Housing Programme
Increasingly, scholarly works challenge the formal/informal dichotomy, stressing the multiple political practices of producing informality which go beyond state incapacity. In contrast, this article addresses a lack of research concerning the production of 'formal' urban space through state-led housing programmes. Deconstructing simplistic notions of state intentionality and incapacity, the article zooms in on competing interests and diverse reso…
Ganz gewöhnliche Viertel: Stigma und Realitäten in Casablancas Slum Er-Rhamna
Slums gelten als das Symbol der vermeintlich unterentwickelten und unkontrolliert wachsenden Megastädte des Globalen Südens. Die damit einhergehende Stigmatisierung von Slums hat nicht nur alltägliche Folgen für die Bewohner*innen, sondern hat spätestens im Zuge der Millennium-Entwicklungsziele auch zu einer Renaissance von Massenwohnungsbauprojekten, Verdrängungen und Umsiedlungen an den Stadtrand geführt. In Bezug auf Marokko zeigt der Artikel,…
The world-class city comes by tramway: Reframing Casablanca’s urban peripheries through public transport
Although framed as projects targeting the improvement of public transport, the reduction of traffic congestion and the integration of urban peripheries, tramways are often inscribed to political ambitions of modernisation and urban renewal. As such, Morocco’s tramway projects constitute a distinct feature of national urban worlding ambitions promoting ‘world-class’ cities. Likewise, Casablanca’s tramway is closely entangled with political discour…
Global aspirations and local (dis-)connections: A critical comparative perspective on tramway projects in Casablanca and Jerusalem
Towards a new perspective on the role of the city in social movements: Urban Policy after the ‘Arab Spring’
Cities were at the centre of the ‘Arab Spring’, but did they play a decisive role or were they just the passive settings in which these uprisings took place? This paper develops a new way of understanding the role of the city in social movements by looking at changes and continuities in urban policy in North Africa after the ‘Arab Spring’. The paper’s main argument is that the role of the city in social movements can be understood through an anal…
The world-class city comes by tramway: Reframing Casablanca’s urban peripheries through public transport
Although framed as projects targeting the improvement of public transport, the reduction of traffic congestion and the integration of urban peripheries, tramways are often inscribed to political ambitions of modernisation and urban renewal. As such, Morocco’s tramway projects constitute a distinct feature of national urban worlding ambitions promoting ‘world-class’ cities. Likewise, Casablanca’s tramway is closely entangled with political discour…
Displaced but happy? Making sense of shantytown dwellers’ divergent views and experiences of resettlement in Casablanca
While researchers have observed a global rise in displacement, many countries in the Global South have set up large-scale housing programmes, aiming to ensure access for all to ‘affordable’ and ‘adequate’ housing. For residents of Casablanca’s shantytowns, this has created a paradoxical situation—enhanced displacement threats and hopes to be soon moving into a higher-quality home. The situation challenges common conceptualisations of displacement…
From Visible Informality to Splintered Informalities: Reflections on the Production of 'Formality' in a Moroccan Housing Programme
Increasingly, scholarly works challenge the formal/informal dichotomy, stressing the multiple political practices of producing informality which go beyond state incapacity. In contrast, this article addresses a lack of research concerning the production of 'formal' urban space through state-led housing programmes. Deconstructing simplistic notions of state intentionality and incapacity, the article zooms in on competing interests and diverse reso…
Global aspirations and local (dis-)connections: A critical comparative perspective on tramway projects in Casablanca and Jerusalem
The occupation of state housing as a moral obligation? Housing welfare in Gauteng between reciprocity and liberalism
The article analyses how political stakeholders have mobilized a moralizing discourse to blame practices of renting and selling state-subsidized housing by its original recipients. Although departures are mostly legal, owners who do not occupy their units are affected by the state's moral expectations of reciprocity that extend ambiguous moral claims towards the right use of provided housing far beyond the law. First, we show how the post-aparthe…
Why low-income people leave state housing in South Africa: Progress, failure or temporary setback
The delivery of houses for homeownership to low-income urban dwellers has been a cornerstone of post-apartheid policies fighting both land and socioeconomic inequalities in South Africa. In this context, policy stakeholders and scholars have been puzzled by housing beneficiaries who leave their state houses, either selling or letting them. On the one hand, this might signal upward mobility where “leavers” successfully integrate into the housing m…
Ordinary neighbourhoods
Emphasising implicit assumptions behind our ways of seeing ‘slums’, this essay calls for a radical understanding of ‘ordinary neighbourhoods’. Borrowing from Robinson’s ‘ordinary cities’ concept, it conceptualises ‘ordinariness’ as a way of rejecting the ‘absolute otherness’ of slums, stressing heterogeneity within and between neighbourhoods as well as the significance of comparative empirical research. Beyond the need for alternative, less stigm…
Towards a new perspective on the role of the city in social movements: Urban Policy after the ‘Arab Spring’
Cities were at the centre of the ‘Arab Spring’, but did they play a decisive role or were they just the passive settings in which these uprisings took place? This paper develops a new way of understanding the role of the city in social movements by looking at changes and continuities in urban policy in North Africa after the ‘Arab Spring’. The paper’s main argument is that the role of the city in social movements can be understood through an anal…
Ganz gewöhnliche Viertel: Stigma und Realitäten in Casablancas Slum Er-Rhamna
Slums gelten als das Symbol der vermeintlich unterentwickelten und unkontrolliert wachsenden Megastädte des Globalen Südens. Die damit einhergehende Stigmatisierung von Slums hat nicht nur alltägliche Folgen für die Bewohner*innen, sondern hat spätestens im Zuge der Millennium-Entwicklungsziele auch zu einer Renaissance von Massenwohnungsbauprojekten, Verdrängungen und Umsiedlungen an den Stadtrand geführt. In Bezug auf Marokko zeigt der Artikel,…
The world-class city comes by tramway: Reframing Casablanca’s urban peripheries through public transport
Although framed as projects targeting the improvement of public transport, the reduction of traffic congestion and the integration of urban peripheries, tramways are often inscribed to political ambitions of modernisation and urban renewal. As such, Morocco’s tramway projects constitute a distinct feature of national urban worlding ambitions promoting ‘world-class’ cities. Likewise, Casablanca’s tramway is closely entangled with political discour…
Global aspirations and local (dis-)connections: A critical comparative perspective on tramway projects in Casablanca and Jerusalem
From Visible Informality to Splintered Informalities: Reflections on the Production of 'Formality' in a Moroccan Housing Programme
Increasingly, scholarly works challenge the formal/informal dichotomy, stressing the multiple political practices of producing informality which go beyond state incapacity. In contrast, this article addresses a lack of research concerning the production of 'formal' urban space through state-led housing programmes. Deconstructing simplistic notions of state intentionality and incapacity, the article zooms in on competing interests and diverse reso…
Ordinary neighbourhoods
Emphasising implicit assumptions behind our ways of seeing ‘slums’, this essay calls for a radical understanding of ‘ordinary neighbourhoods’. Borrowing from Robinson’s ‘ordinary cities’ concept, it conceptualises ‘ordinariness’ as a way of rejecting the ‘absolute otherness’ of slums, stressing heterogeneity within and between neighbourhoods as well as the significance of comparative empirical research. Beyond the need for alternative, less stigm…
Housing Pathways of the “Missing People” of Public Housing and Resettlement Programs: Methodological Reflections
This article deals with methodological challenges and presents solutions for the study of people who depart from state-subsidized housing in Ethiopia, Morocco, and South Africa. Having sold or rented out their units, these people have left and now live at dispersed locations. Assuming that many “missing people” leave state housing because of project-related shortcomings, studying the reasons for their departure is crucial to understanding standar…
Displaced but happy? Making sense of shantytown dwellers’ divergent views and experiences of resettlement in Casablanca
While researchers have observed a global rise in displacement, many countries in the Global South have set up large-scale housing programmes, aiming to ensure access for all to ‘affordable’ and ‘adequate’ housing. For residents of Casablanca’s shantytowns, this has created a paradoxical situation—enhanced displacement threats and hopes to be soon moving into a higher-quality home. The situation challenges common conceptualisations of displacement…
Why low-income people leave state housing in South Africa: Progress, failure or temporary setback
The delivery of houses for homeownership to low-income urban dwellers has been a cornerstone of post-apartheid policies fighting both land and socioeconomic inequalities in South Africa. In this context, policy stakeholders and scholars have been puzzled by housing beneficiaries who leave their state houses, either selling or letting them. On the one hand, this might signal upward mobility where “leavers” successfully integrate into the housing m…
The End of Inclusive Resettlement: Experiencing Unaffordability within State Housing Programmes in Salé, Morocco
Since the early 2000s, Morocco’s government is running the Villes Sans Bidonville programme (VSBP) as a literal reference to international policy claims for Cities Without Slums . Initially and in contrast to past, unsuccessful attempts to eradicate the country’s bidonvilles , more inclusive resettlement schemes – participatory and affordable for all – should help to avoid that residents resell resettlement housing and move back to bidonvilles . …
The Missing People of State‐subsidized Housing: Lived Experiences of Non‐Occupancy and Secondary Residential Mobility
Large‐scale, state‐subsidized housing programmes have experienced a renaissance in Africa, Asia and Latin America, but provoke justified concerns about whether they miss their target groups. Unaffordability, lack of choice, peripheral locations and under‐serviced sites are common problems. Ultimately, many subsidized units are not occupied by their intended recipients. Most authors see this as a form of gentrification or downward‐raiding, whereby…
The occupation of state housing as a moral obligation? Housing welfare in Gauteng between reciprocity and liberalism
The article analyses how political stakeholders have mobilized a moralizing discourse to blame practices of renting and selling state-subsidized housing by its original recipients. Although departures are mostly legal, owners who do not occupy their units are affected by the state's moral expectations of reciprocity that extend ambiguous moral claims towards the right use of provided housing far beyond the law. First, we show how the post-aparthe…
Affordable housing, finance and the state: Towards a global urban comparison
The scale of the 21st-century urban housing challenge has prompted state actors in both the Global North and South to adopt increasingly interventionist approaches to ‘affordable’ housing production. This article draws on research in six cities (Shanghai, Nairobi, Paris, Casablanca, Salford and Rome) to discuss the changing relationship between housing, finance and the state through a global comparative perspective. It adopts an urban statecraft …
Sociology (12 works) · Urban and Rural Development Challenges (11 works) · Political science (9 works) · Urban Planning and Governance (9 works) · Economics (7 works) · Economic growth (6 works) · Geography (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Social science (5 works) · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism (4 works)