Disrupting Disruption with Abolitionist Proptech
Topics: Urban Geography
, Economic Geography
, Cultural Geography
Keywords: proptech, housing, financialization, racialization, tool-building
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Sunday
Session Start / End Time: 2/27/2022 02:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/27/2022 03:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 76
Authors:
Ian Spangler, University of Kentucky
Eric Robsky Huntley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Abstract
While there is growing interest among economic, financial, and digital geographers to investigate the relationships between "proptech" and the financialization of housing, there has been relatively little work that empirically examines digital technologies for housing justice (exceptions include Sotoudehnia 2021, Anti-Eviction Mapping Project 2021). In this paper, combining qualitative research in the US proptech sector with reflections on building the tool tenantpower.org, we develop the concept of "abolitionist proptech" -- an approach toward digital real estate technology that takes emancipatory politics as its primary development goal (Fields & Raymond 2021). In doing so, we argue that while digital technologies will likely prove important in struggles for housing justice, they remain embedded within the web of social relations that constitute them, and subject to many of the same limitations that constrain "platform real estate" (Shaw 2018). After reviewing the role of digital technologies in the financialization of housing, the paper proceeds with an analysis of select PRE firms to highlight ways in which these technologies are “developed within, put to use, and replicate existing inequalities” (Browne 2015). However, instead of pitting "platform real estate" in a simple dichotomy against "abolitionist proptech," we argue for a more nuanced perspective in which technical solutions are always already inflected by social relations (e.g., D'Ignazio and Klein 2020). In concluding, we specify the key aspects of abolitionist proptech through a reflection on building the tool tenantpower.org, a web application that allows users to examine multiply owned properties in the Greater Boston Metro area.
Disrupting Disruption with Abolitionist Proptech
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Virtual Paper Abstract
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