Residualization of Public Housing – Lessons from Poland’s Five Largest Cities

Housing inequality is one of the central topics in urban studies, and in the social sciences more broadly. It is also one of the most significant and visible aspects of socioeconomic inequality. Over the last three decades, the process of housing commodification has accelerated across western societies and, consequently, the public housing sector has contracted and become more closely associated with the poorest sections of societies in many cities. Over the same period, the political changes in Central and Eastern Europe have contributed to the dismantling and monetizing of state housing sectors at the forefront of broader social and economic transformations. Unfortunately, most recent studies on housing commodification and inequalities in Europe are confined to the national scale. The aim of this research is to detail the linkages between the position and functioning of public housing in the five biggest cities in Poland (Warsaw, Krakow, Wroclaw, Lodz and Poznan) and the evolving socioeconomic profile of individuals and households that rely on public housing. Additionally, the aim is to present the spatial patterns of social housing concentration in the analysed cities, and how those patterns of evolved over the years. This study relies on microdata (statistical information on individuals and households) from three national Polish censuses (1988, 2002 and 2021) and from household budget surveys (2005–2022). The main finding of our study is that ‘residualization’ is present in the public housing stock in urban Poland, and that the process gained momentum in the first two decades of the 2000s. Nonetheless, the pace, scale and patterns of public housing residualization are sensitive to a given urban context.