Editorial

The importance of housing to adequate standards of living is recognized globally. Housing as a human right has long been recognized within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, while the United Nation’s New Urban Agenda emphasizes the importance of inhabiting and producing “just, safe, healthy, accessible, affordable, resilient and sustainable cities and human settlements to foster prosperity and quality of life for all” (United Nations, 2017, p. 5). Yet, there remain enduring and evolving global crises, as citizens are denied access to, or displaced from, accessible, affordable and secure housing on a range of social, economic, environmental and political grounds.

There are, of course, significant variations within and between regions, nations, continents and economies, as well as between different population demographics. It is the challenge of housing scholarship to grapple with these variations and to understand relevant processes, conditions, circumstances and solutions. In this latest issue of Housing and Society, we are delighted to showcase a range of scholarship that interrogates exactly these issues, documenting how housing experiences can be mediated by age, income, social mixing and community relationships. This set of papers reveals the circumstances of different groups and the strategies they commit to in order to secure appropriate housing, but also the processes and circumstances that prohibit access to or maintenance of secure and sustainable housing.

Yadav et al. (2023) explores the experiences of older women living with low pensions and their strategies to age in place. Recognizing the relationship between financial security and housing security, Yadav et al.’s work, based on qualitative interviews, highlights the interconnections between housing and welfare systems, finding that participants needed to supplement pensions to afford housing and living costs. While for some this caused difficulty, the participants in Yadav’s work highlighted the importance of social relationships and arrangements to older women with lower incomes, including familial and community support networks. The article gives new insights into how accessing appropriate housing is not solely about the physical shelter, but about generation of and benefit from community cohesion and belonging.

Yadav’s paper, focusing on Sweden, complements Warner et al.’s (2023) research on a proposed co-housing neighborhood, exploring the perspectives of potential residents and their interests in this alternative tenure type. Findings revealed that potential residents perceived significant, including strong and supportive community relationships, affordability, and design that would facilitate safety, security and social inclusivity. Warner et al.’s study complements extant evidence on alternative housing models (Czischke et al., 2020; Mullins & Moore, 2018), which highlight the potential for co-housing to combat societal issues, such as segregation and exclusion (Kvietkute & Hauge, 2022; Lies et al., 2017). Their article extends existing scholarship by offering a unique insight into the early motivations of residents during project planning and development.

Warner et al.’s vision of housing that promotes inclusion and social relationships, is particularly important in the context of Rodríguez Cortés’ (2023) study of urban segregation in Mexico and the consequences for low-income residents amid attempts to alter socio-spatial organization of populations. Efforts to increase spatial proximity of group from different social classes may not actually result in integration or tolerance. Rodríguez Cortés’ work highlights ways in which public space is used and appropriate to the detriment of lower-income, longer-standing residents, and ways in which urban sociability is limited by the absence of common spaces for encounters and interactions among different socio-economic groups. This is an important contribution, as even in urban renewal processes that seek to engender change to urban segregation, “the impact of urban segregation on social relations and inclusion is not clearly visible.”

This analysis of the relative influence of the physical form on community relationships is important and juxtaposes with Kirk et al.’s (2023) qualitative exploration of the experiences of residents accessing permanent supportive housing. Crucially, resident relationships were valued as fundamental to feelings of stability and security. Housing provides important shelter and meets needs, while providing a platform for interactions between residents and neighbors within a project and the fostering of a sense of community. This, it is argued, enables positive life changes for residents that have previously experienced homelessness.

The above analysis has focused on the importance of community relationships to the ability, or lack thereof, of people to access and maintain secure housing in inclusive neighborhoods. This is just one facet that unifies the work published in this issue. Each article also makes its own contribution to more specific fields of research, whether related to the appetite for new alternative housing models, the interaction between housing and welfare systems, the nuance and rhythm of processes of urban renewal and the extent to which social mixing is achieved, or to the factors that enable successful “Housing First” approaches to tackling homelessness.

The articles that feature in this issue of Housing and Society reflect the diversity of scholarship that we are committed to publishing. We have recently advertised for three new Associate Editors to join the journal, with the intention of expanding the geographical community of the journal, while maintaining our origins in and close relationships to the Housing Education and Research Association.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tom Moore

Thomas Moore is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography & Planning at the University of Liverpool. HIs research interests include housing policy and tenure change, community-led housing initiatives, and the meaning of home and place.

Richard Dunning

Richard Dunning is Professor of Land Economy and Housing at the University of Liverpool. Drawing from behavioural economics, his research focuses on explaining human decision making in the built environment. Richard's research frequently considers: calculations of housing need; the relationship between public outcomes and land value capture; and cycling infrastructures.