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This article explores the impact of the 'hostile environment' on racialised migrant women's experiences of pregnancy and childbirth in England, arguing that the 'hostile environment' functions as a technology of 'stratified reproduction.' First coined by Shellee Colen, the concept of stratified reproduction describes the dynamic by which some individuals and groups may be supported in their reproductive activities, while others are disempowered and discouraged. This paper locates the stratified reproduction produced by the 'hostile environment' as intertwined with wider gendered and racialised discourses around British citizenship which have been 'designed to fail' racialised residents of the UK. Drawing on interviews with racialised migrant mothers in the north of England, this paper analyses how the proliferation and intensification of immigration controls interacts with gender, race, class, and other social regimes to differentially allocate the resources necessary for a safe and healthy pregnancy and childbirth, and how this is experienced materially by pregnant migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The role that social class plays within the desistance journeys of individuals on probation is largely unexplored. This lack of understanding is acknowledged as a limitation within theorising around desistance processes. It also prompts questions as to the awareness of class and classism issues amongst probation staff and their practice approaches within this difficult area of professional application. This reflective paper offers some discussion areas in which probation staff can collectively consider their experiences within this field, as well as those under their supervision. It is suggested that this topic requires greater attention amongst all involved in providing probation services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is especially true for post-conflict countries with authoritarian governments and poorly developed property regimes and cadastral systems. Tahir, acknowledging both the bottom-up and top-down characteristics of the state-building process, draws attention in particular to the issues of urban land governance, which he sees as a critical site for statecraft. It is more sensible for governments to focus on the character of urbanization and seek to improve how people and firms gain access to serviced land and property in cities. Tahir discusses its state-building process, going beyond the more common focus on peacebuilding and democratization to explore the crafting of the legal and administrative regimes that shape governance and the lived experience of the residents of Somaliland's cities. [Extracted from the article]

The most significant episode in the assetisation of housing (underpinning its financialisation) is often understood to be the economic restructuring that took place during the 1980s – particularly deregulation of the banking sector and credit liberalisation. Research has reported on the housing 'investor subject' that emerged during this time, as an integral part of the transition towards financialised economies. This article provides new evidence about the housing consumer subject, and its place in this transition, by drilling into UK housing policy history and its discourses around the consumer relationship with housing. Using archive data from the Parliamentary and National Archives alongside interviews with key informers, we illustrate three cases of housing policy development in which the consumer demand for, and relationship with, housing is discursively reconditioned. We conclude that the housing investor subject was pursued in housing policy reform and its discourses well before the 1980s and the economic reforms commonly identified as the causes of financialisation. In addition, these discourses are found to have been reconditioned in order to align with broader macroeconomic policy concerns of the time. The article therefore provides a rare view of assetisation from within the state apparatus, revealing how housing policy and its discourses around consumption became functionally integrated within wider macroeconomic goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Following the dramatic evacuation from Kabul airport in August 2021, the UK government proclaimed its commitment to a 'warm welcome' for Afghans. In this paper we draw on original qualitative research to explore the emerging experiences of evacuees, and other recent arrivals, during their first year in London. Using the narratives of our Afghans participants, as well as insights from key stakeholders, we show how they navigated slow, opaque bureaucratic processes and lack of communication with official agencies. As a result of these lengthy processes, many thousands of evacuees remained in temporary hotel accommodation for protracted periods. Drawing on the concept of 'everyday bordering', we explore the extent to which Afghan resettlement policies are achieving their objectives. We consider how such policies are birthed within a punitive immigration system, which is designed to 'wear down' migrants in the UK, regardless of their reason for migration. Moreover, we argue that the ad hoc response of the Home Office and the Foreign Office has created 'false distinctions' between categories of Afghan refugees, reinforcing notions of 'deserving' versus 'underserving' migrants. This distinction allows the government to present itself as humanitarian, 'rescuing' people from Afghanistan, while simultaneously maintaining its commitment to the 'hostile immigration environment'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This issue of I Environment and Urbanization i is looking for papers that address these and other relevant issues. Discounted Prices and Electronic Access to Environment and Urbanization All papers published in I Environment and Urbanization i since its first issue in 1989 are available at http://journals.sagepub.com/home/eau, and all but those published during the last two years are open access and so available electronically free of charge. With regard to electronic access, there are schemes that allow access to I Environment and Urbanization i for universities and research centres in low- and middle-income nations - see Research4Life (http://www.research4life.org). [Extracted from the article]

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The literature indicates that most housing in the urban areas of many countries in the global South is in informal settlements, provided through informal mechanisms that are often not well understood. This paper contributes to understanding the forces influencing real estate markets in informal settlements, drawing on a case study of the under-researched Ayobo community in Lagos, Nigeria. The paper examines the roles played by government agencies and other market actors, including buyers, sellers, informants, financiers and witnesses, in relation to the operation and regulation of informal land markets. The analysis of the data, drawn from a survey and interviews, reveals a thriving property market, which is socially if not formally regulated. The paper concludes that this flourishing informal market needs strengthening to effectively meet the housing needs of urban residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

How can occupiers, both renters and owners, afford decent housing when globally cities are facing housing crises ([34])? The papers in this issue collectively make three key contributions to the debates on housing provision, investment and governance. Housing supply, investment demand and money creation: a comment on the drivers of London's housing crisis. Keywords: Housing; financialisation; governance EN Housing financialisation governance 8 13 6 12/23/22 20230101 NES 230101 Introduction As researchers living in, analysing and often challenged by London's housing system, we are constantly thinking about how the governance and regulation of global housing systems are evolving. [Extracted from the article]

This paper responds to the article by Gayatri Singh, Trina Vithayathil and Kanhu Charan Pradhan on residential segregation by caste in urban India, in this issue of Environment and Urbanization. It compares caste-based residential segregation in India and Pakistan, focusing on Mithi and Karachi in Pakistan. The paper discusses how political change, migration, violence, and religious and ethnic identity in Karachi have shaped preferences on where different castes and religious minorities wish to reside. Meanwhile, in Mithi, where capitalism is not fully developed, caste continues to determine where one can live. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is often assumed in housing and urban studies scholarship that the roots of Sweden's present housing discontents are to be found in a neoliberal 'system switch' following the early-1990s banking crisis. This paper offers a different account, identifying and expounding how insuperable contradictions in Sweden's complex of housing production, distribution and finance, from the 1970s onward, led to a marked deterioration in its much-lauded housing model. Advancing a historical institutionalist framework, the paper seeks to historically couch the processes and outcomes commonly associated with the contemporary neoliberal era and position them more concretely in relation to actors and their social relations through time. Using a range of data pertaining to housing finance, subsidies, house prices and building output, as part of a mixed-methods analysis, the paper explores how macroeconomic factors, mediated by interactions between the state and sectoral cleavages, influence urban and regional development aspects. The paper's conceptual and methodological relevance to housing and urban studies scholarship thus extends beyond Sweden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Canada, there are vast differences between the state of accommodation/housing, health, social inequalities, education and economic conditions for people in the northern and southern regions of the country. Overcrowding in Inuit Nunangat is a direct result of the promises made by past government policy that led to Inuit people settling in sedentary communities in the North on the understanding that they would be provided with social welfare. However, these welfare programmes proved to be either insufficient or non-existent for Inuit people. Therefore, Inuit are living in overcrowded homes in Canada, resulting in a severe housing shortage, poor-quality housing and homelessness. This has led to the spread of contagious diseases, mould, mental-health issues, gaps in education for children, sexual and physical violence, food insecurity and adverse challenges for the youth of Inuit Nunangat. This paper proposes several actions to ease the crisis. First, funding should be stable and predictable. Next, there should be ample construction of transitional homes which could be used to accommodate people before moving them into proper public housing. Policies regarding staff housing should be amended, and if possible, these vacant staff houses could provide shelter to eligible Inuit people, which could help lessen the housing crisis. The advent of COVID-19 has made the issue of affordable and safe housing more serious because without safe housing, the health, education and well-being of the Inuit people in Inuit Nunangat are in peril. This study focuses on how the governments of Canada and Nunavut are dealing with this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the last few decades, most Latin American countries have made good progress in improving the living conditions of urban populations, but still face enormous challenges. This paper describes the roles of city and other local governments in designing housing policies and integrating them into governance, planning and finance. This includes many innovations in local governments' housing policies, especially those implemented in the first decade of this century by progressive city governments. It also includes decentralization that supported municipal governments to develop their housing and urban development plans. Relevant as well are policies to address the quantitative deficit (insufficient supply of housing) and the qualitative deficit (inadequate quality of housing), such as informal settlement upgrading. The paper includes examples of where housing policy decentralization created spaces for democratic, participatory and inclusive city governance. It also highlights the importance for social housing of finance and the measures that may be taken to address this, including land management instruments and capture of real estate surplus value. But much of this innovation has been lost over the last decade, after the economic crisis and the rise of a new wave of conservative regimes in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, cities have been experiencing neoliberal urbanization processes since the 1970s, while also contributing to the production of the neoliberal condition per se. The neoliberal state plays a core role in such processes, which have deepened the commodification of urban space via various mechanisms such as the privatization of public land and key urban infrastructure. This article critically investigates the direct involvement of the neoliberal state in the commodification of urban space by focusing on its triple role as a restructuring mechanism, a land developer and a volume housing developer in Turkey. The research develops and applies a theoretical framework based on Lefebvre's production of space and Gramsci's theory of hegemony. The paper examines the development of branded housing projects, which are private neighbourhoods, by analysing national legislative and organizational changes leading to the production of this type of development and illustrates this using four example projects in Istanbul. The paper contributes to the international evidence of the variegated characteristics of the neoliberal state in relation to urban development, and the neoliberal state's role in the accumulation of capital in contemporary capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarizes the informal settlement upgrading processes in the Namibian municipality of Gobabis, which are arguably the most accomplished bottom-up developments in the country so far. As these processes were made possible through a broad coalition of partners, we employ the lens of co-production and engage with the more recent literature on it, which focuses on questions of equity and empowerment. We note how co-production achieves more efficient use of resources and decentralizes power in urban development. We argue that in this case, efficiency and equity are aligned. We also note how despite these achievements, the balance of power remains uneven in favour of central and local governments. The paper also briefly describes the context of urban development in Namibia, and concludes with a set of questions for further research on co-production of land for housing the urban poor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mining settlements are typically portrayed as either consisting of purpose-built housing constructed by mining companies to house their workers, or as temporary makeshift shelters built by miners working informally and inhabited by male migrants who live dangerously and develop little attachment to these places. This paper contributes to these debates on the social and material dynamics occurring in mining settlements, focusing on those with urban rather than rural characteristics, by highlighting how misconceived these archetypal portrayals are in the Ghanaian context. Drawing on qualitative data collected in three mining settlements, we explore who is moving to and living in the mining towns, who is building houses, and how attachments to place develop socio-temporally. Through doing so, the paper provides original insights on the heterogeneous nature of mining settlements, which are found to be home to a wide range of people engaged in diverse activities. Mining settlements and their attendant social dynamics are shown to evolve in differing ways, depending on the type of mining taking place and the length of time the mines have been in operation. Significantly, we illustrate how, contrary to popular understandings of incomers to mining settlements as nomadic opportunists, migrants often aspire to build their own houses and establish a family, which promotes their attachment to these settlements and their desire to remain. These insights further scholarship on the social and material configuration of mining settlements and feed into the revival of interest in small and intermediate urban settlements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing demand for private renting has stimulated debates on rent regulation in many cities. In Hong Kong, grassroots groups have lobbied for stronger rent regulation, in the context of rapidly rising rents. This paper seeks to interpret the evolving dynamics of the rent regulation debate in Hong Kong, from the 1990s to the present. In particular, the paper seeks to interpret changes in the lobbying strategies of advocacy groups, through applying theories from the sociological literature on framing processes. The findings reveal that advocates and opponents disagree because of divergent prognostic frames, despite their similar diagnosis of rental affordability problems. Furthermore, existing motivational frames are unable to mobilise support from a broader range of households. These insights are relevant not only to debates on housing policy, but also to other public policy areas, where the degree of resonance of motivational frames helps explain the change in momentum of policy advocacy work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper focuses on the meaning of the urban environment for parents on family leave in Helsinki, Finland. Finland is a part of the Nordic model that emphasises ‘family-friendly arrangements’, such as family leave for mothers and fathers. To date, there is little research on how parents use urban space on family leave, although it is known that fathers stay on family leave more often in urban areas. Based on a triangulation of qualitative data on the day-to-day life of mothers and fathers on family leave, the paper argues that particular place-dependent ways of being on family leave take place in the inner city. Mixed-use pavements in many ways help mothers and fathers to cope in their new life situation and break the isolation often associated with family leave. The data also shows the importance of family-friendly public and commercial places in the city, such as playgrounds and accessible grocery shops, cafeterias and restaurants. The paper concludes that there is a need to further explore the production side of the everyday practices of parents, and how they add to city life and participate in changing cityscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The increasing number of anti-trafficking organizations and funding for anti-trafficking services have greatly out-paced evaluative efforts resulting in critical knowledge gaps, which have been underscored by recent recommendations for the development of greater evaluation capacity in the anti-trafficking field. In response to these calls, this paper reports on the development and feasibility testing of an evaluation protocol to generate practice-based evidence for an anti-trafficking transitional housing program. Guided by formative evaluation and evaluability frameworks, our practitioner-researcher team had two aims: (1) develop an evaluation protocol, and (2) test the protocol with a feasibility trial. To the best of our knowledge, this is one of only a few reports concerning anti-trafficking housing program evaluations, particularly one with many foreign-national survivors as evaluation participants. In addition to presenting evaluation findings, the team herein documented decisions and strategies related to conceptualizing, designing, and conducting the evaluation to offer approaches for future evaluations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an inquiry into the powers at play in the everyday practices of making the city, and the social and spatial relations through which those who inhabit its margins put these powers to work. This exploration is based on a case study that considers informal housing practices and their regulation in allotment gardens in Berlin. To trace the mechanisms through which residents work to stay put in these sites, despite regulations prohibiting residency therein, the paper relates a debate on the transformative potential of the everyday to anthropological literature on the workings of the state, embedding this discussion in relational approaches to power and place. Joining these perspectives, I argue that the gardeners' possibilities to stay put depend on the ways in which they meditate the presence of regulatory practices through their relations to state actors or institutional frames. These mediations not only highlight that people co-construct the order that takes shape, but also point to the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion built up along the way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sets the idea of slow violence into dialogue with trauma, to understand the practice and legitimisation of the repeated damage done to certain places through state violence. Slow violence (Nixon R (2011) Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press) describes the 'attritional lethality' of many contemporary effects of globalisation. While originating in environmental humanities, it has clear relevance for urban studies. After assessing accounts of the post-traumatic city, the paper draws insights from feminist psychiatry and postcolonial analysis to develop the concept of chronic urban trauma, as a psychological effect of violence involving an ongoing relational dynamic. Reporting from a three-year participatory action research project on the managed decline and disposal of social housing in a former coalmining village in north-east England, the paper discusses the temporal and place-based effects of slow violence. It argues that chronic urban trauma becomes hard-wired in place, enabling retraumatisation while also remaining open to efforts to heal and rebuild. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proposals for a Universal Basic Income (UBI) have a long history, but a surge of interest since the global financial crisis suggests a connection to growing inequality and insecurity. The pandemic intensified interest through the global explosion in the use of cash transfers. This special issue arose from pre-pandemic debates among Australian sociologists connecting global interest around UBI to emerging patterns of inequality and insecurity stemming from Australia's precarious labour market and expensive housing market. Those discussions broadened to reflect on Australia's colonial history and patriarchal economy, and the potential to recognise more diverse contributions and values. Evolving through the Covid crisis, the issue now incorporates the remarkable alternatives that were, briefly, made possible. The articles reflect both scepticism and optimism towards UBI, but all reveal how basic income can provide a useful lens for Australian sociology – a simple tool responding to an increasingly complex society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spatial concentration of recently arrived immigrants in gateway cities and suburbs is usually seen as undesirable by urban academics and policy makers. This paper presents a counter-argument that the concentration of disadvantaged new immigrants in the form of humanitarian refugees and their families can, and does, result in positive outcomes for those groups. In part, our argument is based on making a distinction between people-based disadvantage and place-based disadvantage. The paper examines the changing nature of place-based ‘advantage’ for immigrants in Australian gateway cities through a focus on two metropolitan locations, Auburn (Sydney) and Springvale (Melbourne), known as popular destination suburbs for recent immigrants. While these two cases validate the benefits of such gateway suburbs, they also demonstrate that the capacity of recent migrants to emulate concentrated settlement patterns is now significantly undermined by changes in the labour market and affordability problems in the housing market. The paper concludes with a discussion on the possible future of gateway suburbs and the implications of this shift for the wellbeing of particular groups of disadvantaged residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much attention has been devoted to examining the absolute benefits of home-ownership (e.g. security and autonomy). This paper, by contrast, is concerned with conceptualising and testing the relative benefits of home-ownership; those benefits that depend on an individual’s status in society. Home-ownership has previously been analysed as a social norm, implying that the relative benefits (costs) associated with being an owner (renter) are positively related to relevant others’ home-ownership values. The theoretical contribution of this paper is to additionally conceptualise home-ownership as a positional good, implying that the status of both home-owners and renters is negatively related to relevant others’ home-ownership consumption.The empirical contribution of this paper is to quantitatively test for these relative benefits in terms of subjective wellbeing. We run fixed effects regressions on three waves of the British Household Panel Study. We find that (1) a strengthening of relevant others’ home-ownership values is associated with increases (decreases) in the subjective wellbeing of home-owners (renters), and (2) an increase in relevant others’ home-ownership consumption decreases the life satisfaction of owners but has no effect for renters. Overall our findings suggest that (1) the relative benefits of home-ownership are both statistically significant and of a meaningful magnitude, and (2) home-ownership is likely to be both a social norm and a positional good. Without explicitly recognising these relative benefits, policymakers risk overestimating the contribution of home-ownership to societal wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities all over the world have activated policy support for urban consolidation in recent decades. Rationales for urban consolidation focus on its perceived ability to achieve sustainability goals, including decreased automobile dependence, increased social cohesion and greater walkability. Despite this, there are few international examples of urban consolidation policy implementation that has achieved its stated aims. This paper explores the nature and character of perceptions of urban consolidation held by urban planners, developers, architects and local politicians. The perspectives held by these ‘city shapers’ are integral to urban consolidation debates and delivery, yet the nature and character of their specific views are underexplored in urban studies literature. This paper combines the theoretical lens of Social Representations Theory with the methodological approach of Q-methodology to understand the common sense understandings of urban consolidation held by city shapers in Brisbane, Australia. It identifies, synthesises and critically discusses the social representations employed by city shapers to understand, promote and communicate about urban consolidation. Findings indicate that urban consolidation debates and justifications diverge significantly from stated policy intentions and are based on differing views on ‘good’ urban form, the role of planning and community consultation and the value of higher density housing. We conclude that there is utility and value in identifying how urban consolidation strategies are influenced by the shared beliefs, myths and perceptions held by city shapers. Understanding these narratives and their influence is fundamental to understanding the power-laden manipulation of policy definitions and development outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the degree of commonalities present in the cyclical behaviour of the eight largest metropolitan housing markets in Australia. Using two techniques originally proposed in the business cycle literature we firstly consider the degree of synchronisation present and secondly decompose the series into their permanent and cyclical components. Both empirical approaches reveal similar results. Sydney and Melbourne are closely related to each other and are relatively segmented from the smaller metropolitan areas. In contrast, there is substantial evidence of commonalities in the cyclical behaviour of the remaining cities, especially those on the eastern and southern coasts of Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The state, which has the monopoly power to own, manage and expropriate land, is making land available for housing, but to the highest bidder. Most of these services are the responsibility of city or municipal governments, although national government policies and support to these levels of government are also essential. While Freedom Square received national government support, there is still insufficient state support for bottom-up initiatives in general. And it is important to understand who has power in controlling or influencing housing and land markets, whether as a function of resources, or based on the authority that politicians and traditional leaders can exercise. [Extracted from the article]

Today, over half of the world's population lives in urban areas and it is projected that, by 2050, two out of three people will live in a city. This increased rural–urban migration, coupled with housing poverty, has led to the growth and formation of informal settlements, commonly known as slums. In Mexico, 25% of the urban population now live in informal settlements with varying degrees of deprivation. Although some informal neighbourhoods have contributed to the upward mobility of the inhabitants, the majority still lack basic services. Mexico City and the conurbation around it form a mega city of 21million people that has been growing in a manner qualified as 'highly unproductive, (that) deepens inequality, raises pollution levels' (available at: https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/ex/sustainablecitiescollective/making-way-urban-reform-mexico/176466/) and contains the largest slum in the world: Neza-Chalco-Izta. Urban reforms are now aiming to improve the conditions in these slums and therefore it is very important to have reliable tools to measure the changes that are underway. In this paper, we use exploratory factor analysis to define an index of shelter deprivation in Mexico City, namely the Slum Severity Index (SSI), based on the UN-HABITAT's definition of slum. We apply this novel approach to the Census survey of Mexico and measure the shelter deprivation levels of households from 1990 to 2010. The analysis highlights high variability in housing conditions within Mexico City. We find that the SSI decreased significantly between 1990 and 2000 as a result of several policy reforms but increased between 2000 and 2010. We also show correlations of the SSI with other social factors such as education, health and fertility. We present a validation of the SSI using Grey Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) features extracted from Very-High Resolution (VHR) remote-sensed satellite images. Finally, we show that the SSI can present a cardinally meaningful assessment of the extent of deprivation compared with a similar index defined by Connolly (Connolly P (2009) Observing the evolution of irregular settlements: Mexico city's colonias populares, 1990 to 2005. International Development Planning Review 31: 1–35) that studies shelter deprivation in Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last two decades have witnessed a substantial growth of the owner-occupied housing sector in urban China, where most people tend to follow a conventional life course in terms of ascending the housing ladder towards homeownership. Yet, with skyrocketing housing prices in the real estate market, fragmentation in housing opportunities has become more important in reshaping the structure of social inequalities. This paper investigates the disparities in housing careers between skilled migrants and their local counterparts in Nanjing, focusing on temporal and spatial aspects. Specifically, this paper examines how skilled migrants' housing tenure and location change over time, to what extent these changes differ from those of skilled locals, and what factors contribute to the disparities between migrants and locals. The results verify that there are indeed disparities in housing careers between migrants and locals, and the foremost difference lies in the tenure, especially the tenure of the first residence. Spatially, migrants exhibit an outward-bound pattern, often associated with the transition from renting to owning. These disparities in housing careers could be primarily attributed not only to the gap of the intergenerational transfer of wealth between migrants and locals, which can be traced back to regional disparities in economic development, but also to the self-selection of migration. While facing skyrocketing housing prices, the timing of making a foray into the housing market is pivotal. This study also revealed the diminishing marginal utility of education that is found in terms of establishing a superior housing career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the ways new houses in Tibetan villages of Qinghai have become a marker of family status. After the advent of state-led housing subsidy projects in China's Qinghai province in 2009, Tibetan villagers have actively and increasingly engaged in building new houses to maintain their family status and prestige. According to local standards, owning a new, high-quality house is now an important measure of the household's living standard and signals the family's social and economic status. Drawing on Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital, and engaging with cultural geographies of home and house, this study examines the shifting markers of family status and explores how state-led development projects inscribe social, cultural, and political meanings in housing. In doing so, it argues that Tibetan villagers' desire to construct new housing in Qinghai province is to create markers of family status, not actual shelters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The welfare regime of Southern Europe, and Greece in particular, does not adequately cover the needs of its citizens. On the contrary, and within this context, family welfare has to be much more efficient. Moreover, the support received from the family imposes a sense of reciprocity, as receivers are expected to be givers in the future. This reciprocity is assisted mainly by the female members of the kin, defining to a degree their housing practices. Data for this paper is derived from a wider research project investigating young people's housing practices and family strategies through in-depth interviews in Athens, Greece. Bringing gender to the fore, it explores how the housing provision from family is impacted by the receivers' gender role in connection to family welfare obligations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper assesses the effects on suburbia of an energy transition to less carbon- or petroleum-intensive energy urban forms using a socio-technical theoretical perspective. The paper argues that while suburbia is the predominant form of urbanisation in advanced nations, especially North America and Australia, its socio-technical composition is insufficiently understood by urban scholars. Using a socio-technical theoretical perspective, the paper argues that suburbia should be seen a complex ‘assemblage’ that is configured through socio-material relations of land use, transport technology, energy and money credit. This system is also differentiated by social status and infrastructure access deficits. The paper argues that suburbia faces a number of socio-technical challenges from an energy transition principally due to heavy mobility reliance on motor vehicles. The paper sets out some potential trajectories of transformation for suburbia under an energy transition. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper offers an exploration of urban expansion from the point of view of the individual residents buying land, settling and living in new, rapidly growing peripheral settlements of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The findings suggest that the demand for affordable housing is the primary motivation for residents moving to the periphery. The demand for self-built, owner-occupier housing is especially significant initially, while the demand for non-ownership housing increases in importance later in the process. Income-related motives, on the other hand, are strikingly absent from settlement considerations. Urban residents settle in the periphery, even though income-generation is often tied to working somewhere else, namely in the central parts of the city. The paper proposes that the processes of urban expansion depicted in this study are usefully conceptualised as suburbanisation processes, though it is a type of suburbanisation that has some peculiarities given the particular context, where expansion happens informally and largely unguided by planners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Micro-level studies using individual and household data have shown that residential location choices are influenced by neighbourhood ethnic composition. Using three conurbation samples in the Netherlands – Amsterdam metropolitan area, Rotterdam-The Hague metropolitan area and the country’s largest conurbation, the ‘Randstad’ urban agglomeration – this paper analyses the evolution of neighbourhood ethnic composition as a social interaction outcome of disaggregated household behaviour. The potential ‘tipping point’ in neighbourhood ethnic composition, beyond which ‘white flight’ (or the departure of native or advantaged households) occurs, is tested. The share in neighbourhood population of native Dutch and Western minority did not exhibit the hypothesised ‘tipping’ behaviour in its growth rate with respect to initial share of non-Western minority. This paper argues that the large social housing sector, centralised tax regime, and strong regulatory role of the state in housing and urban planning, are the main explanatory factors for the relative constancy in Dutch neighbourhood ethnic composition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]