The commodification of a rent-regulated housing market. Actors and strategies in Viennese neighbourhoods

The role of vertical segregation in urban social processes

“…Similar hierarchies are sometimes witnessed unexpectedly, as in the case of the few housing towers in Vienna, which operate in a very different way from the city's strongly regulated housing market and attract an affluent clientele that are used to this type of housing investment product 41 . Moreover, new regulations, bypassing the long-term existing tenement regulations in Vienna, have liberated/ deregulated a considerable part of the housing market (the top floors of the old housing stock-Zinshäuser) in the city center 42 , eventually promoting social mix and vertical social hierarchies at the micro scale.…”