Bringing new ideas to housing research

In the comparative housing policy literature, in addition to surveys of broad trends and the 
formulation of housing regime typologies, deep dives into specific local or national cases can also provide necessary empirical evidence for reformulating theoretical frameworks and challenging long-held 
assumptions. This is particularly true when taking on countries and regional contexts that are under-
represented in the housing studies literature. In order to make a contribution in this regard, this special issue examines recent housing policies in Buenos Aires, Argentina. By taking Buenos Aires as both a microcosm of the Latin American housing regime and a ‘laboratory’ for housing policy, the articles in the special issue explore the politics of housing policy in a Global South megacity. This close reading of continuity and change in local approaches reveals the socially constructed and politically contested nature of housing policy ‘innovation’, as well as tensions with existing housing inequalities.

In recent years, the situation of renter households has emerged as a pressing social issue in Argentina, leading to the growth of tenant organisations around the country. This article examines the experience of grassroots tenant organisations in their attempts to influence local and national legislative agendas related to rental housing. It critically analyses these organisations’ concrete aims and achievements, as well as the other effects of this social movement. These include the emergence of novel forms of political mobilisation centred around the identity of ‘tenant’ in a country that still imagines itself as a homeownership society despite shifts in patterns of housing tenure and a budding ‘generation rent’.