In Athens, housing lies at the core of ongoing urban transformations and socio-material conflicts. The city’s dominant housing form—the post-war apartment block—bears the accumulated scars of financial crises, debt burdens, and chronic underinvestment. At the same time, repair and renovation have re-emerged in fragmented and uneven ways. While some properties or entire buildings are selectively upgraded, these interventions are often tied to speculative investment and tourist-driven development, resulting in higher rents and reinforcing inequalities. These polarized dynamics are not only distributed across different neighborhoods but also frequently coexist within the same condominium: neglected units and deteriorating shared spaces alongside renovated high-end apartments. This juxtaposition of neglect and repair reflects both material deterioration and social vulnerability, while reshaping the conditions of affordability, coexistence, and everyday life in Athens’s central neighborhoods.
Duration: 01.2026 – 02.2026
Funding: Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF – Scientific exchange)
Host institution: EKKE/ LaSTcity
Principal investigators: I. Dimitrakou
Research Team: I. Dimitrakou, S.Spyrellis
Links: Everyday geographies of neglect and repair
This research project investigates how processes of neglect and repair are negotiated in the city’s transforming neighborhoods, with a focus on Patissia, an area characterized by high levels of deprivation yet undergoing new forms of investment. The central aim is to examine how property condition, ownership patterns, and everyday repair practices intersect to shape the housing trajectories of older and more recent residents. The project takes a deliberately exploratory and empirical approach, focusing on apartment blocks as case studies. These buildings provide a lens into the dynamics of neglect, renewal, and coexistence that are shaping Athens today.
The project is conducted during a research stay at the National Centre for Social Research (EKKE) in Athens. It builds on Ifigeneia Dimitrakou’s prior fieldwork on vacancy and property management in deprived neighborhoods of Athens, and the recent quantitative studies of Stavros Spyrellis on housing deprivation and renovation dynamics in central Athens. The research stay involves joint research, co-designed fieldwork, collaborative data collection, and co-writing.