Tenth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

In a capitalist economy such as the United States, housing is regarded as a commodity and thereby inherently shares the characteristics of commodification under capitalism analyzed by Marx. Embodied by an innate social quality, regarding housing as commodity allows for relative reflections of current societal, architectural, cultural, and economic trends. However, social housing (i.e. housing via the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, LIHTC) is a unique commodity for a variety of political, economic and theoretical reasons that often conflicts with Marxist theories. Furthermore, upon review of contemporary literature in housing studies, low-income housing remains largely entrenched in isolated disciplines, analyzing the various facets of what it is, with little discussion on why the systemic injustice occurs and how our economic policies shape and are shaped by the societal value we attribute to it. Therefore, the central argument of this paper is that the units which low-income families occupy and the property rights surrounding such housing developments constitute political subjectivities and objective preferences not only for the level of public spending, but also for the level of term investment from banks and syndicates, the level of tax relief for the developers, and the nature of that taxation. By applying a political-economy perspective to issues of low-income housing, this paper thoughtfully untangles the political subjectivities and objective preferences influencing the core issues and mandates of the LIHTC program.