Digitalization and Housing: Factors of Social Inclusion and Exclusion

In a context of global financialization, tourism and gentrification, and with the legacy of the housing bubble and subsequent crisis the country experienced in the early 2000s, housing exclusion in Spain is an increasing reality at the center of political discussion. Digital platforms such as Airbnb have created a growing stranglehold on housing supply, while online listings, such as Idealista, are monopolizing the information on prices and acting as market regulators in favor of tenants. As a result, the real estate market, especially in large cities and coastal towns, is experiencing an exponential increase in prices, especially rental prices, and the expulsion of local population.

The proposed communication shows the results of a research focused on the factors of inclusion and exclusion that digitalization brings in the field of the right to housing, carried out in three large cities of Southern Europe, combining desk research with qualitative methodology. We will focus on the Spanish case, for which 17 semi-structured interviews were conducted with key interlocutors, including representatives of NGOs, public authorities, activists and academics with expertise in different fields related to the phenomenon (law, economics, urban planning, geography...).

While the advocates of digitization stress the possibilities linked to the flexibility of access to housing or to the improvement of governance through data collection, vulnerable groups, among whom the third digital divide still prevails (Van Dijk, 2006), find an increasingly digitized real estate market, administration and services that hinder their right to housing.

On the other hand of digitalization, social movements have emerged around the right to housing (Platform of People Affected by Mortgages (PAH), focused on evictions, or Tenants’ Union (Sindicato de Inquilinas), focused on rental). These movements have been able to leverage social networks as a loudspeaker to raise awareness among the population and exert political pressure.