Intersections between housing affordability and meanings of home: a review

Autor: Patrick Barrett
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2023
Předmět:
Zdroj: Kōtuitui, Vol 18, Iss 1, Pp 27-44 (2023)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 1177083X
1177-083X
DOI: 10.1080/1177083X.2022.2090969
Popis: ABSTRACTResearch into housing affordability has flourished alongside growth in house prices, just as successive governments have used a range of policy levers to curb price increases. To date, however, these policies have met with little success. One persuasive explanation for that failure is that housing policies have been developed using affordability metrics in ways that have reinforced neoliberal prescriptions for the provision of housing, and that such policies are doomed to fail. Neoliberal policy settings continue to be influential, even in an environment where, under the current Labour Government, there is a rhetorical rejection of these prescriptions. Against this background, this review paper explores how a housing affordability research agenda might be bolstered by examining intersections between dimensions of affordability and meanings of home. Emerging research suggests that when housing is unaffordable it becomes an arena of struggle in which dwellings are transformed in ways that undermine the potential to provide security, stability and connection associated with meanings of home. The article concludes by suggesting research questions to examine that struggle in the pursuit of a sense of home, and in so doing gain a better understanding of the lived experience of unaffordability.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals