Berlin Housing Expropriation Debate Invokes Friedrich Engels's 1872 'Zur Wohnungsfrage'

Berlin is debating the expropriation of 200,000 apartments from large housing companies, and the argument against the plan echoes Friedrich Engels's 1872 text "Zur Wohnungsfrage." One of the most cited objections holds that socialization creates no new housing, which is literally true: transferring roughly 200,000 units from private to public-interest ownership adds no new dwellings. The article argues this point is banal, since a change of ownership never creates living space, a fact that also applied when Berlin sold municipal housing. The more interesting question concerns what happens to existing stock, land, and revenues, and who builds under what conditions and for whom. Berlin offers nearly three decades of empirical material on this question. The piece references the Berliner Bank and directs readers to the current issue for the full text.