Unequal Cities and the Political Economy of Housing – XVIII ISA World Congress of Sociology

July 13-19, 2014, Yokohama (Japan)

Unequal Cities and the Political Economy of Housing

Inequality in the housing market is not necessarily a result of inequality in other markets, e.g. the labour market, but forms of inequality are often related and have an important territorial expression. Inequality in cities is not only an expression of the socio-spatial patterns of housing markets, but is also, at least in part, a result of it. To understand unequal cities, one needs to understand the political economy of housing. The big question then is: How have state, market and civil society powers at different scales created nationally and locally variegated housing markets and how have the resulting structures contributed to in/equality? We also welcome papers that address the following related questions:

• How do housing policies, in their relationship with housing markets, contribute to or counter inequality in other markets?
• How do urban planning regulations and/or urban land management instruments have contributed to counter – or increase – inequality in housing markets?
• How has the financialization of housing (both owner-occupied and rental) restructured existing patterns of inequality?
• How is housing embedded in the wider political economy of a city?
• How do income inequality and housing inequality together re/produce different forms of segregation in the city?
• How do social movements respond to and contribute to the political economy of housing?
• How are ‘crisis moments’ used to further both neoliberal and counter-neoliberal agendas in housing?