Informal urban regeneration as a way out of the crisis? Airbnb in Athens and its effects on space and society

Balampanidis, Dimitris; Μαλούτας, Θωμάς; Papatzani, Eva; Pettas, Dimitris

doi:10.1080/17535069.2019.1600009

Cited by 70 publications

(69 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…The increasing popularity of Athens as a tourist and "golden visa" destination led to strong pressure on the housing market through real estate speculation and Airbnb rentals. The tourism boom of Athens in 2018 and 2019 has also led to tourism-related investments affecting the real estate sector [51][52][53]. The emphasis on tourism development resulted in neglect of other priorities.…”

Section: Athens Vacancy and Temporary Use Initiativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Temporary Use as a Participatory Placemaking Tool to Support Cultural Initiatives and Its Connection to City Marketing Strategies—The Case of Athens

Karachalis

2021

Sustainability

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For many cities, abandoned or underused spaces pose a major challenge, but temporary use is being manifested as a tool that can offer solutions. So-called “meanwhile spaces” provide opportunities for city officials to create the conditions for the cultural economy to be supported while simultaneously meeting urban regeneration goals and supporting city marketing purposes. In European cities, such as Berlin, Ghent, Nantes, and Bremen, there are examples where “temporary urbanism” is being incorporated into mainstream policy and is forming part of the city’s identity and tourism promotion. Temporary use is discussed in the context of current challenges facing European cities (austerity crisis, unemployment, refugee crisis, lack of affordable housing or office space). In this paper, the focus is on the creative sector. More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has sparked discussion on how temporary use can cover a community’s needs. In this contextual framework, the scope was to explore the conditions under which temporary use becomes an effective policy tool and discuss management issues and difficulties that may arise. A description and analysis of the particularities of initiatives that were implemented in Athens compared to the ones in other European cities are presented. This paper is partly based on the works of the Athens URBACT Refill project, which included an extended consultation process with local stakeholders. Further field research was conducted regarding how temporary use initiatives with a cultural focus have been managed and the way the relations between owners, managers, and users were formed. Feedback from users and stakeholders’ representatives is presented. The key findings refer to the evaluation of the approaches used in temporary use initiatives with a cultural focus, the future perspectives, and the difficulty with drawing early conclusions on the effectiveness of these initiatives and the impact on the reputation of the city. Finally, the discussion is linked with promoting Athens as a city that allows experimentation by citizens’ groups and cultural initiatives in the context of temporary interventions.

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Section: Athens Vacancy and Temporary Use Initiativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Temporary Use as a Participatory Placemaking Tool to Support Cultural Initiatives and Its Connection to City Marketing Strategies—The Case of Athens

Karachalis

2021

Sustainability

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“…These conceptual gestures have contributed to show how local processes are increasingly embedded in global (financial) flows: Maloutas himself and his colleagues have recently suggested that short-term rental platforms may be making gentrifiable the once ungentrifiable Athens (Balampanidis et al, 2019: 14-15). Yet, conflating concepts with such different natures (some context-bound, some more abstract) reproduces the problems previously highlighted by Maloutas.…”

Section: From Travelling Concepts To Articulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With urban regeneration discourses and policies becoming one of the hallmarks of the Southern European version of capitalism as instruments of the attraction of capital flows, and facing the evidence that its cities are becoming increasingly shaped by global flows (cf. Balampanidis et al, 2019), we intended to reflect on the capacity of concepts like gentrification, touristification and financialisation to explain present trends. In Mouraria, local residents are being replaced only partially by gentries, and above all by temporary users, tourists and the use of real estate as a financialised asset – and this prompted critical scholars to use the concepts of ‘tourism gentrification’ (Mendes, 2017) and ‘gentrification without gentry’ (Krähmer, 2017; Krähmer and Santangelo, 2018).…”

Section: Conclusion: From (Touristic) Gentrification To Articulatingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Articulating urban change in Southern Europe: Gentrification, touristification and financialisation in Mouraria, Lisbon

Tulumello

Allegretti

2020

European Urban and Regional Studies

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The global or planetary reach of gentrification has become a mainstream in critical urban studies. Yet, the ‘travels’ of a concept originated in specific places and times have often brought about a loss of explanatory and strategic power. In this article, we argue that another concept, that of articulation developed by Laclau and Mouffe, is particularly adequate to help gentrification, touristification and financialisation to travel among places and levels of abstraction. In order to make this argument, we focus on Southern Europe, whose cities had long been considered scarcely gentrifiable and where, more recently, critical urban scholarship has made large use of gentrification, touristification and financialisation to explain the impacts of crisis, austerity and afterwards economic rebound driven by real estate and tourism. We explore from a multi-scalar perspective the trajectory of Mouraria, a historical neighbourhood in Lisbon – and particularly the dimensions of housing and local politics. We show how Mouraria, during the last decade, shifted from being a ‘deviant’ case – capable of taking advantage of neoliberal regeneration policies in order to keep its social diversity and most of its long-term residents – towards one ‘paradigmatic’ of urbanisation-as-accumulation and contentious urban politics. We explain this shift by focusing on its multi-scalar determinants, concluding that present urban change in many Southern European cities should be understood as the articulation of various processes, which include gentrification, touristification and financialisation.

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“…The phenomenon developed spontaneously and informally, as a new form of rent, giving to the owners of land in the center a solution to tackle with crisis and the increase in property tax. Gradually, investors engaged in short term rental activity in the center transforming whole buildings in short term rental facilities (Balampanidis et al, 2019).…”

Section: The Upcoming Urban Tourismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Τhe symbolic economy of cities – new shapes of work and networking: Τhe role of traditional and emerging clusters of creativity in the Αthenian public space

Koutsari

Demertzi

2020

Grsr

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Η συμβολική οικονομία των πόλεων – νέες μορφές εργασίας και δικτύωσης: Ο ρόλος των παραδοσιακών και των αναδυόμενων clusters δημιουργικότητας στον αθηναϊκό αστικό χώροΣε αυτό το άρθρο εξετάζουμε τις αλλαγές στον αθηναϊκό αστικό χώρο που έγιναν υπό το φως της κρίσης καθώς και τις αλλαγές στις εργασιακές σχέσεις και τη συμβολική οικονομία της Αθήνας. Στα πρώτα κεφάλαια γίνεται θεωρητική επισκόπηση των διεθνών αλλαγών, του ρόλου του πολιτισμού στις αναπτυξιακές στρατηγικές και της συμβολικής οικονομίας. Επίσης, αναλύονται οι σύγχρονες αστικές πολιτικές και οι νέες μορφές εργασίας. Η περίπτωση του ιστορικού κέντρου της Αθήνας ως χώρου συγκέντρωσης δημιουργικών δραστηριοτήτων και ως αναπτυσσόμενου τουριστικού προορισμού έρχεται επίσης στο προσκήνιο. Το τελευταίο κεφάλαιο αφιερώνεται στην εν εξελίξει επιτόπια έρευνα που διεξάγεται προκειμένου να εξεταστούν τα παραδοσιακά και τα αναδυόμενα συμπλέγματα (επίκεντρα) δημιουργικότητας στο κέντρο της Αθήνας, τον τρόπο δομής, λειτουργίας και εγκατάστασης τους και την αλληλεπίδρασή τους με το «Αθηναϊκό Αστικό Εργοστάσιο».

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Informal urban regeneration as a way out of the crisis? Airbnb in Athens and its effects on space and society

Cited by 70 publications

References 14 publications

Temporary Use as a Participatory Placemaking Tool to Support Cultural Initiatives and Its Connection to City Marketing Strategies—The Case of Athens

Temporary Use as a Participatory Placemaking Tool to Support Cultural Initiatives and Its Connection to City Marketing Strategies—The Case of Athens

Articulating urban change in Southern Europe: Gentrification, touristification and financialisation in Mouraria, Lisbon

Τhe symbolic economy of cities – new shapes of work and networking: Τhe role of traditional and emerging clusters of creativity in the Αthenian public space

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