Urban Housing in Central and Southeastern Europe

The participants of this Summer School will gain deep insights into the specific urban housing markets of the three cities – its structures, actors and societal frames. In this programme, students will explore housing issues in the three metropolises and link them to general debates in urban studies. The Summer School wants to address the following perspectives on housing markets:

Structures: Historic structures and recent dynamics of urban housing and office markets

Actors: Interplay of public and private actors, international investors and investment strategies, production networks

Society & Policies: Social implications, regulative frames, urban protests

Transformation of urban spaces: urban large scale projects, gentrification and segregation

Course leader

The summer school is based on an international cooperation between several Institutions: Austrian Academy of Sciences University of Vienna University of Belgrade Harokopio University Athens

Target group

The Summer School is open to Masters and PhD-students from disciplines such as geography, history, architecture, anthropology and other disciplines focussing on different aspects of housing and real estate dynamics in an urban context. We invite students who are interested in the mutual links between physical and social structures, in particular the transformations on the housing market and its economic and social dynamics.

Course aim

How do general urban trends in housing vary – including increasing price cycles, more international investors and developers, and more large-scale projects – and what are their implications for the three metropolises? Can recent and historic dynamics on urban housing markets in all three cities be explained adequately? Do the dynamics in all three housing markets dynamics strengthen sociospatial uneveness? To answer these questions, the Summer School focuses on two aims: first, it wants to gain insights into recent developments and the historic genesis of urban housing and office markets in the three cities. Second, beyond empirical issues, it discusses the challenges of a comparative urban housing research and reflects the transferability of urban theories.