SOLD CITY - Wenn Wohnen zur Ware wird

In the organizer's words:

Sold City - When housing becomes a commodity

a film from below in two parts by Leslie Franke and Herdolor Lorenz

In cooperation with attac Dortmund and the Dortmunder Mieterverein

Part 1: Property instead of human rights
Part 2: Expropriation instead of rent for profit

There will be a short break between the two parts

"Sold City", the new film in two parts by Leslie Franke and Herdolor Lorenz ("Wer rettet wen?", "Der marktgerechte Patient", "Der marktgerechte Mensch"), shows how the real estate boom in Germany came about, how those affected experience it and how we can defend ourselves.

Part 1, "Property instead of human rights", deals with the system of converting housing into corporate property. Banks, funds and international investment capital have been pushing their way into cities for many years. Hardly any tenant is safe from the sale of their apartment. When it comes to cashing in, they are the only ones who are bothered. Politicians seem to have completely abandoned their duty to provide housing, and social housing construction has been dwindling for decades in the service of private investors despite billions in subsidies. What is the situation in other major cities such as London or Vienna, where investor capital is also circling?

The second part, "Expropriation instead of rent for returns", is dedicated to the large housing corporations that mainly use rent to finance shareholder dividends. The popular initiative "Deutsche Wohnen & Co." has been calling for the expropriation of large housing groups for years. In London, the situation for tenants is even more problematic. Author Anna Minton describes the displacement of the working population no longer just as gentrification, but as the "sterilization of cities". Vienna provides the counter-example: private investors here have to build two thirds of their projects as subsidized apartments in which tenants can live for the rest of their lives. Why can't we do the same here? We can also look to highly capitalist Singapore, where land is a particularly limited commodity. When there is a lot of "free capital" circling above the land, land prices explode, as happened during the financial crisis. But thanks to a land expropriation law, 86% of the population in Singapore live in communal housing. Why shouldn't the same thing work here?