Renters unions against the neo-liberal city: can new renters' organisations in Barcelona and London build mass movements?

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The project seeks to understand the rise of renters unionsand their capacity to build mass housing movementorganisations in opposition to the neoliberal re-shaping ofcities. It takes as case studies Sindicat de Llogaters inBarcelona, and London Renters Union, and asks why thisnovel form of organising has emerged in recent years. Ituses the lens of a comparative analytical focus on thepolitical narratives that the two renters unions deploy to askwhy claiming a right to the city appears to be more advancedin Barcelona than London.Housing crises and the growth of renters unionsBoth London and Barcelona have suffered housing crises inrecent years, marked by increased costs and insecurity inthe private rented sector (Kemp, 2015; GLA, 2015). Thehousing crisis in London has resulted in a surge of housing6 / 11campaign groups (Walker and Jeraj, 2016; Watt and Minton,2016; Edwards, 2016; Watt, 2018). Despite evident failures ofthe prevalent 'free market' model, as demonstrated by the2008 financial crisis, neo-liberal narratives still dominatepublic discourse. Renters unions in London and Barcelonaexemplify a new movement of private renters organisingacross Europe, to which little attention has so far been paidin the literature. Despite the often unsympathetic policyenvironment renters unions have begun to offer narratives ofmajor changes to the property regime, quickly attracting amembership base.In the United Kingdom however renters unions haveremained small, composed of relatively few dedicatedactivists. London Renters Union (londonrentersunion.org,2018) is the fastest-growing housing movement organisationin London but at 750 members (at November 2018) is stillfar from being a mass movement. Barcelona meanwhile hasmore developed housing movement organisations(Eizaguirre, Pradel-Miquel and Garcia, 2017). The municipalgovernment, which includes participants in the broad-basedPlataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH), now aims toprotect renters from market forces, still promoted by theMadrid government. The founders of the PAH have now beeninstrumental in founding a new renters union, Sindicat deLlogaters (Palomera, 2018).These two new renters unions in differing political contextswill be examined from an insider's perspective, generatingreflexive data on these new urban social movements andtheir interactions with the cities they inhabit.