Profile

I am an associate professor (UD1) in urban geography at the University of Amsterdam. I have developed a research profile at the intersection of urban geography and critical housing studies. I have received both the VENI and VIDI grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO), as well as various other research grants. 

Since 2025, I am co-director of the Amsterdam Centre for Inequality Studies (AMCIS).

I am currently also associate editor at International Journal of Housing Policy, and at the Dutch interdisciplinary journal Beleid en Maatschappij. 

A key value underpinning my work is to contribute beyond academia. I dedicate a lot of time to knowledge dissemination and have become a leading voice in public debates on housing. Most importantly, I am an author at Das Mag publishers, having published two literary non-fiction books with them. 

Finally, I take pride in teaching. I currently teach and coordinate master level courses (Advanced Urban Geography; Geographies of food) and bachelor level courses (Kwaliteit van Leven, Future Planet Studies). I also regularly supervise (research) master students and apprentices.

 <<<Links to my most recent interviews, essays and publications can be found here>>>

Research

Most of my research focuses on the question how housing is both an outcome and driver of inequality. A common thread in my research is that I aim to combine political-economy perspectives on macro-level processes with micro-level analyses. Below I highlight some of my main research projects.

For a full and up-to-date overview of my academic publications, see Google scholar. 

DWELLWELL: Towards a political economy of housing and health (NWO VIDI-grant, 2026-2031)

In October 2025, I was awarded a VIDI-grant from NWO (the Dutch Research Council) for my project DWELLWELL. I will be PI of this project and work with 2 PhD-candidates. This is a short summary of the project:

Housing has a major impact on health: where you live matters a lot. Most research, however, only looks at the housing unit itself. Housing policies and housing systems are ignored. DWELLWELL will address this, by developing a political-economic understanding of housing’s impact on health. Simply put, the project will address how housing policies and housing systems can make people sick and generate health inequalities. The project will use comparative and longitudinal quantitative methods, as well as in-depth ethnographic fieldwork with key stakeholders. It will combine cross-European comparisons with a focus on the Netherlands and United Kingdom.

I have written an agenda-setting article in which I further elaborate on my idea on developing a political economy of housing and health (published in Progress in Human Geography, 2025).

JUST ADAPT: The political economy of housing climate adaption (NWO Startersbeurs, 2024-2029)

Together with Jens van 't Klooster (UvA political science) I work on a project to understand the political economy of climate adaptation in housing. We combined our individual "startersbeurzen" to develop this project. We specifically focus on the interactions between financial, housing and climate adaptation policy, developing a political economy approach to housing in the face of the financial impact of climate change. We are interested in understanding how different housing-asset owners position themselves in relation to climate adaptation policy and how to pay for it. 

We will hire a PhD-candidate to work on this project with us.

Passende huisvesting: Homelessness and adequate housing (NWA consortium project, 2025-2028)

This large consortium project led by Hogeschool Utrecht will develop key academic and practical insights on how to successfully implement housing-based approaches to homelessness, seeing access to adequate housing (passende huisvesting) as a crucial ingredient to reduce homelessness. 

I lead a work package that will provide insight into (i) the interaction between housing-based approaches to homelessness and wider housing policies and housing systems; and (ii) the longitudinal housing pathways of people experiencing homelessness. 

I work together on this project with postdoc Dolly Loomans (UvA).

Socio-ecological inequalities in housing (NWO XS-grant, 2024-2027)

Together with various colleagues at the UvA (Federico Savini) at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (Mira Kopp) and Universiteit Leiden (Peter Berrill, Leshem Cohen, Stefano Merciai) I work on a project to understand social and ecological inequalities in housing. This is an interdisciplinary project, combining insights from urban geography, spatial planning and industrial ecology.

From January 2026 to January 2027, this project will benefit from an NWO XS-grant. This is the project summary:

Many countries, including the Netherlands, are currently facing a housing crisis that needs urgent addressing. However, simply building more homes has large environmental impacts incompatible with climate targets. This project therefore develops an innovative framework to understand socio-ecological inequalities in housing. It allows us to understand to what extent various housing problems (such as availability, affordability, quality, suitability) are interconnected with environmental impacts (carbon emissions, material extraction, land use). Establishing these connections enables identifying pathways to reduce social inequalities in housing while remaining within planetary boundaries. It uses the Netherlands as empirical case study.

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Previous projects include:

• Cumulative housing disadvantage (NWO XS-grant, 2023-2024)
• Housing and environmental inequalities (Kenniscentrum ongelijkheid, 2021-2023, PI: Wouter van Gent)
• Investing in inequality: how the increase in private housing investors shapes social divides (NWO VENI-grant, 2020-2023)
• Evaluation of the Rotterdam Act (Ministry of the Interior, 2014-2015)
• Inequality in the gentrifying European city (PhD-research, 2013-2017, cum laude)

PhD-supervision

I currently co-supervise two ongoing PhD-candidates:

• Eline van Oosten on rats and socio-spatial inequalities, at the UvA (with Rivke Jaffe);

• Marieke van der Star on green gentrification in Oslo, Norway (at University of Oslo, with Per Gunnar Røe and Lars Böcker)

Completed PhD-supervision:

• Amber Howard (2020-2025) on housing inequality in young adult, at the UvA (with Richard Ronald) and the University of Melbourne (with Rebecca Bentley)

Public writing

Although I enjoy academic writing, I get a lot of energy out of popular-scientific writing for a broader audience. Over the past few years I have written op-eds and essays for most major newspapers (NRC, Volkskrant, Trouw, Parool, FD) as well as a broad range of other printed and online media (including Groene Amsterdammer, Jacobin, OneWorld, Sociale Vraagstukken, Socialisme en Democratie, De Helling, Economische Statistische Berichten, VPRO Tegenlicht). Check, for example, my 2025 essay about housing inequality in NRC.

Between 2019 and 2021 I wrote a bi-weekly column for the website of the Dutch tv-channel RTL Nieuws. 

I regularly appear on TV to comment on the housing crisis (including Buitenhof, Talkshow M, Nieuwsuur), in documentaries (including VPRO Tegenlicht, BNNVara Opstandelingen, Half Holland Dakloos), on radio, in podcasts, and in written media. 

Uitgewoond

In February 2022, my book Uitgewoond (in Dutch, loosely translated as "Worn out") was published by Das Mag. In this popular-scientific book I addres the politics behind the current Dutch housing crisis. The book won the Sociologische Bril 2022 (award for best public sociology) and was further shortlisted for the 2022 Prinsjesboekenprijs (best political book of the year) and the NPO Radio 1 non-fiction book of the year.

Read interviews about my book in: NRC, Trouw, Parool, Follow the Money, Vice, De Correspondent, RTL Nieuws, Sociale Vraagstukken, De Architect, Vers Beton. 

In schaamte kun je niet wonen

In September 2023 I published a shorter essay In schaamte kun je niet wonen ("You can't live in shame") on the lived experience of the housing crisis. I do so based on an analysis of personal (family) experiences, linking these to a critical analysis of our housing politics. Read interviews about this book in Het Parool or De Standaard, or read excerpts from the book in De Groene Amsterdammer or Jacobin NL.

Career

• 2025-present: Co-director of the Amsterdam Centre for Inequality Studies (AMCIS)

• 2024-present: Associate professor (UD1) in Urban Geography at the University of Amsterdam

• 2022-2024: Assistant professor (UD2) in Urban Geography at the University of Amsterdam

• 2017-2022: Postdoctoral researcher Urban Geography at the University of Amsterdam (VENI "investing in inequality")

• 2014-2015: Full-time researcher Centre for Urban Studies at the University of Amsterdam (policy evaluation 'Rotterdamwet')

• 2013-2017: PhD researcher Urban Geography at the University of Amsterdam (gentrification)

• 2013: junior researcher Centre for Urban Studies at the University of Amsterdam (young people and housing)

Education

• 2017: PhD in Urban Geography, University of Amsterdam - Cum Laude / with distinction
• 2013: MSc Research Master Metropolitan Studies, University of Amsterdam - Cum Laude / with distinction

• 2010-2013: Research Master Urban Studies/Metropolitan Studies (MSc.) at the University of Amsterdam GSSS

• 2012: Master Sozialwissenschaften at Humboldt Universität zu Berlin (Research Exchange)

• 2009-2010: Urban Planning and Landscape at the University of Manchester (Erasmus Exchange)

• 2007-2010: Urban Planning (BSc.) at the University of Amsterdam

Academic publications

2025

1. Hochstenbach, C., & Arundel, R. (2025). On Housing Inequalities, Struggles and Solidarities Across Tenures. Housing, Theory and Society.
2. Hochstenbach, C. (2025). For a political economy of housing and health. Progress in Human Geography, 03091325251357025.
3. Hochstenbach, C. (2025). How housing restructuring shapes social and tenurial inequalities in cumulative housing disadvantage. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 57 (7), 1002-1028.
4. Hochstenbach, C., Kadi, J., Maalsen, S., & Nethercote, M. (2025). Housing as an engine of inequality and the role of policy. International Journal of Housing Policy, 25(1), 1-17.
5. Ntarladima, A.M., Hochstenbach, C., Giezen, M., & Gent, W. V. (2025). Housing tenure, urban development and environmental inequality. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 1-25.
6. Hochstenbach, C., Howard, A., & Arundel, R. (2025). Increasing Social and Spatial Inequalities in Parental Co‐Residence. Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie, 116(2), 212-231.
7. Flood, M., & Hochstenbach, C. (2025). Queer in a housing crisis: how nonbinary and genderqueer young adults navigate housing precarity. Social & Cultural Geography, 26(8), 920-944.
8. Hochstenbach, C. (2025). Framing the housing crisis: Politicization and depoliticization of the Dutch housing debate. Housing Studies, 40(5), 1226-1251.

2024

1. Howard, A., Hochstenbach, C. & Ronald, R. (2024). Understanding generational housing inequalities beyond tenure, class and context. Economy and Society, 53(1), 135-162. 
2. Howard, A., Hochstenbach, C., & Ronald, R. (2024). Rental sector liberalization and the housing outcomes for young urban adults. Urban Geography, 45(7), 1173-1194 DOI: 10.1080/02723638.2023.2279873.
3. Uitermark, J., Hochstenbach, C., & Groot, J. (2024). Neoliberalization and urban redevelopment: The impact of public policy on multiple dimensions of spatial inequality. Urban Geography, 45(4), 541-564 10.1080/02723638.2023.2203583.
4. Hochstenbach, C. (2024). Networked geographies of private landlordism: mapping flows of capital accumulation and rent extraction. Housing Studies, 39 (9), 2234-2259. DOI: 10.1080/02673037.2023.2174255.
5. Hochstenbach, C., & Aalbers, M. B. (2024). The uncoupling of house prices and mortgage debt: towards wealth-driven housing market dynamics. International Journal of Housing Policy,  24 (4), 642-670. DOI: 10.1080/19491247.2023.2170542

2023

1. Hochstenbach, C. (2023). Balancing accumulation and affordability: How Dutch housing politics moved from private-rental liberalization to regulation. Housing, Theory and Society, 40(4), 503-529. 

2022

1. Van der Star, M.E., & Hochstenbach, C. (2022). Continuity among stayers: Levels, predictors and meanings of place attachment in rural shrinking regions. Journal of Rural Studies, 96, 369-380.
2. Verlaan, T., & Hochstenbach, C. (2022). Gentrification through the ages: A long-term perspective on urban displacement, social transformation and resistance. City, 26(2-3), 439-449.
3. Hochstenbach, C. (2022). Landlord elites on the Dutch housing market: Private landlordism, class, and social inequality. Economic Geography, 98(4), 327-354.

2021

1. Aalbers, M.B., Hochstenbach, C., Bosma, J., & Fernandez, R. (2021). The death and life of private landlordism: How financialized homeownership gave birth to the buy-to-let market. Housing, Theory and Society, 38(5), 541-563.
2. Hochstenbach, C., & Musterd, S. (2021). A regional geography of gentrification, displacement, and the suburbanisation of poverty: Towards an extended research agenda. Area, 53(3), 481-491.
3. Hochstenbach, C., & Arundel, R. (2021). The unequal geography of declining young adult homeownership: Divides across age, class, and space. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 46(4), 973-994.
4. Hochstenbach, C., Wind, B., & Arundel, R. (2021). Resurgent landlordism in a student city: Urban dynamics of private rental growth. Urban Geography, 42(6), 769-791.

2020

1. Hochstenbach, C., & Ronald, R. (2020). The unlikely revival of private renting in Amsterdam: Re-regulating a regulated housing market. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 52(8), 1622-1642.
2. Hoekstra, M. S., Hochstenbach, C., Bontje, M. A., & Musterd, S. (2020). Shrinkage and housing inequality: Policy responses to population decline and class change. Journal of Urban Affairs, 42(3), 333-350.
3. Musterd, S., Hochstenbach, C., & Boterman, W. (2020). Ripples of structural economic transformation: The changing social geographies of Dutch metropolitan regions. Applied Geography, 116, 102151.
4. Van Gent, W., & Hochstenbach, C. (2020). The neo-liberal politics and socio-spatial implications of Dutch post-crisis social housing policies. International Journal of Housing Policy, 20(1), 156-172.
5. Kadi, J., Hochstenbach, C., & Lennartz, C. (2020). Multiple property ownership in times of late homeownership: A new conceptual vocabulary. International Journal of Housing Policy, 20(1), 6-24.
6. Arundel, R., & Hochstenbach, C. (2020). Divided access and the spatial polarization of housing wealth. Urban Geography, 41(4), 497-523.
7. Hochstenbach, C., & Arundel, R. (2020). Spatial housing market polarisation: National and urban dynamics of diverging house values. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 45(2), 464-482.

2019

1. Hochstenbach, C. (2019). The age dimensions of urban socio‐spatial change. Population, Space and Place, 25(2), e2220.

2018

1. Hochstenbach, C. (2018). Spatializing the intergenerational transmission of inequalities: Parental wealth, residential segregation, and urban inequality. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 50(3), 689-708.
2. Van Gent, W., Hochstenbach, C., & Uitermark, J. (2018). Exclusion as urban policy: The Dutch ‘act on extraordinary measures for urban problems’. Urban Studies, 55(11), 2337-2353.
3. Hochstenbach, C., & Musterd, S. (2018). Gentrification and the suburbanization of poverty: Changing urban geographies through boom and bust periods. Urban Geography, 39(1), 26-53.

2017

1. Hochstenbach, C., & Boterman, W. R. (2017). Intergenerational support shaping residential trajectories: Young people leaving home in a gentrifying city. Urban studies, 54(2), 399-420.
2. Hochstenbach, C. (2017). State-led gentrification and the changing geography of market-oriented housing policies. Housing, Theory and Society, 34(4), 399-419.

2015

1. Hochstenbach, C., & Van Gent, W.P.C. (2015). An anatomy of gentrification processes: Variegating causes of neighbourhood change. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 47(7), 1480-1501.
2. Hochstenbach, C., Musterd, S., & Teernstra, A. (2015). Gentrification in Amsterdam: Assessing the importance of context. Population, Space and Place, 21(8), 754-770.
3. Hochstenbach, C., & Boterman, W.R. (2015). Navigating the field of housing: housing pathways of young people in Amsterdam. Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 30, 257-274.
4. Hochstenbach, C. (2015). Stakeholder representations of gentrification in Amsterdam and Berlin: A marginal process?. Housing Studies, 30(6), 817-838.

Rapport sociale huur 2025

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Dit rapport onderzoekt ontwikkelingen in de Nederlandse sociale huursector in de afgelopen twee decennia. Aanleiding is de politieke wens weer meer in te zetten op volkshuisvesting. Het rapport analyseert (i) de omvang van de sociale huursector (woningen in bezit van woningcorporaties), (ii) ruimtelijke ontwikkelingen, (iii) de bewonerssamenstelling en (iv) woonomstandigheden.

Omvang van de sociale huursector

• Het aandeel sociale huurwoningen in Nederland neemt structureel af: van bijna 40% van de totale woningvoorraad eind jaren tachtig, tot 28% van de woningvoorraad in 2024.
• Woningcorporaties bouwden de afgelopen jaren slechts zo’n 15.000 nieuwe woningen per jaar: de helft van formele beleidsambities. Rond 2010 bouwden zij jaarlijks wel nog 30.000 woningen.
• Woningcorporaties slopen, verkopen en liberaliseren daarnaast ook veel woningen. Tussen 2013 en 2023 is het aantal corporatiewoningen met een gereguleerde huur daardoor met ruim 50.000 afgenomen.
• Het aantal nieuwe verhuringen door woningcorporaties is zelfs met 27% afgenomen: van 224.000 toewijzingen in 2015 naar 166.000 in 2023.
• Het aandeel sociale huurwoningen zal de komende jaren blijven krimpen, zelfs als bouwambities worden gerealiseerd. Beleidsambities drijven daardoor uit zicht.

Ruimtelijke ontwikkelingen in de sociale huursector

• Het aandeel corporatiewoningen is het sterkst afgenomen in de grote steden. Dit zijn juist de plekken waar de behoefte aan betaalbare huurwoningen het grootst is.
• Het landelijke woonbeleid doet weinig om deze trend te keren. Het zet juist in op het vergroten van het aandeel sociale huur in (doorgaans minder stedelijke) gemeenten met een kleine sociale huursector.
• In bijna alle gemeenten is tussen 2012 en 2023 het aandeel corporatiehuur afgenomen. In 149 gemeenten (43% van het totaal) nam het aandeel met meer dan 2 procentpunt af. In slechts 31 gemeenten (9%) nam het aandeel, doorgaans zeer licht, toe.
• De beleidsambitie van minimaal 30% sociale huur wordt in steeds minder gemeenten gehaald. In 2012 voldeden nog 103 gemeenten aan deze norm (30% van het totaal), in 2023 was dat nog maar in 61 gemeenten (18%) het geval.

Bewonerssamenstelling

• Woningcorporaties huisvesten in toenemende mate de laagste inkomensgroepen in de samenleving  (armste 20%). Tot 2015 behoorde zo’n 37% van de corporatiehuurders tot de laagste inkomens, inmiddels is dat opgelopen tot zo’n 47%.
• Het aandeel corporatiehuurders met een hoger (midden)inkomen (rijkste 40%) daalde van zo’n 15% tot 9%.
• De leeftijdssamenstelling van de corporatiehuurders verandert overwegend in lijn met de gehele samenleving (o.a. vergrijzing). Wel neemt het aandeel jongvolwassenen in de corporatiesector relatief sterk af. De sector is voor hen in toenemende mate ontoegankelijk.

Woonomstandigheden

• De betaalbaarheid in de sociale huursector is tussen 2015 en 2024 duidelijk verbeterd. In 2015 was bijna 70% van de corporatiehuurders minimaal 30% van hun inkomen kwijt aan woonlasten, in 2024 was dat 47%.
• Beleid als passend toewijzen en beperkte huurstijgingen hebben bijgedragen aan deze verbetering. In de private huursector heeft deze verbetering niet plaatsgevonden.
• Een aanzienlijk deel van de corporatiehuurders gaf in 2024 aan last te hebben van schimmel (29%) of tocht (37%), of niet in staat te zijn de woning goed te verkoelen (46%) of te verwarmen (19%). Kwaliteitsproblemen komen kortom vaak voor.

Conclusies en aanbevelingen

• Politieke ambities om de sociale huursector te versterken staan haaks op dominante ontwikkelingen. De sociale huursector is onderhevig aan structurele krimp en marginalisering.
• Het huidige beleid zal deze ontwikkelingen niet keren. Bij ongewijzigd beleid zal de sociale huurvoorraad blijven krimpen.
• Door financiële beperkingen zijn woningcorporaties onvoldoende in staat om én meer woningen te bouwen, én de bestaande woningen goed te onderhouden en te verduurzamen, én betaalbaarheid voor iedereen te garanderen. Ze moeten lastige keuzes maken tussen aanbod, kwaliteit en betaalbaarheid.
• Woningcorporaties vrijstellen van vennootschapsbelasting zou hun investeringscapaciteit al aanzienlijk vergroten.
• Om alle ambities qua aanbod, kwaliteit en beschikbaarheid te realiseren, is echter structurele overheidssteun nodig. Dit kan op verschillende manieren bekostigd worden, bijvoorbeeld door (directe en indirecte) subsidies voor huiseigenaren af te schaffen.