New tenure, new challenges

A new welcome to Housing and Society from the Joint-Editors-in-Chief, Richard Dunning and Thomas Moore. In December 2022 we were appointed by the journal owners, the Housing Education and Research Association (HERA), as the new editors. The Association is a diverse network of housing professionals, and it is testimony to this diversity that Housing and Society has been at the forefront of new knowledge across housing research and practice for the last fifty years. We are delighted to support the Housing and Society community as we progress the journal over the next four years.

This is a key moment for housing scholarship’s role in society. With the growth in acceptance of the need for interdisciplinary research, housing stands as a key object and structure that requires insights from across aesthetic, economic, pistic, social, political, and so many more aspects. As scholars of housing and society, we grapple with thorny disciplinary theoretical and empirical challenges within these aspects and the relationship between them. Yet, we also need to consider how this knowledge relates to societal housing concerns. There is an awareness that housing scholarship, as with many areas of public life, has not paid enough attention to the meaning of justice in diverse societies and where it has, sometimes failed to articulate this clearly to societal powers.

Whilst scholarship continues to delve deeper, new challenges are also occurring. The ongoing climate change crisis is already requiring new housing scholarship: understanding forcible migration and new locations of housing are necessary; new adaptation instruments are required for those communities remaining in at risk sites; and new relationships between actors, agencies, households, and societies need to be explored and theorized. Many countries are experiencing changing societal patterns, with structural changes to: the age of citizens; wealth distribution; legal security; and norms of societal coalescence all impacting on the relationship between housing and society. Your scholarship is needed to contemplate contemporary and future societal housing needs, and we look forward to partnering with you in disseminating this knowledge.

The diversity of content in Housing and Society was the key draw for us in taking on the journal. Our own research interests range from land use planning for housing development (Dunning et al., 2021) to community-led housing activism (Moore, 2018) and cut across research and theory (Dunning, 2017; Inch et al, 2020; Moore, 2021) and education and practice (Moore, 2022). We are passionate about drawing international practice communities and academics together, to produce new knowledge and influence housing outcomes, and it is in this vein that we will seek to encourage the journal in the future. Whilst much of the editorial work has now transitioned outside of the USA for the first time in the journal’s history, we intend to continue a strong connection with the heritage of housing scholarship within the USA and hope to continue the tradition of detailed discussion of the journal at the HERA annual conference.

The journal is in a strong position. As a community we owe a debt of thanks to Professor Katrin Anacker, for her role over the last four years in growing the journal – in particular, attracting an increase in the number of submissions when she took over. As we look back at Katrin’s work over the last four years, we can see prominent discussions at the crux of contemporary housing scholarship being recognized through the journal. Parker and Leviten-Reid’s (2022) analysis of the gendered inequality of housing precarity through COVID-19 shone a light on both how theory needs to grapple with describing intersectional housing needs and sketched out a new research agenda for us to tackle. Kvietkute and Lappegard Hauge (2022) highlighted how little we know about housing preferences amongst potential co-housing residents and the need to revise evidence on housing choice as new housing and societal trends co-exist. In 2021 the special issue on housing and disasters, edited by Sarah Kirby, brought us significant new insights through the disaster life-cycle: from understanding housing precarity to risks (Orooji & Friedland, 2021) and preempting disaster and impact mitigation measures (Hooper, 2021), through to the experience during the emergency phases of hurricanes Katrina and Rita (Lee & Bame, 2021), the construction of post-disaster housing (Taghinezhad et al., 2021) and the cost of disaster-induced forced migrant moves (Johnson & Carswell, 2021). We also think back to Rita et al. (2020) discerning work on how “right to the city” narratives were being operationalized and contested by indigenous people and international migrants in Hawaii, and the disastrous impact upon Micronesians in public housing. These, and many more papers, are a legacy of the Housing and Society community, and Katrin’s effort as editor over this period.

The strength of Katrin’s editorial work is reflected in the journal’s latest issue, and we are delighted to showcase a diverse range of international scholarship, interrogating housing’s intersection with identity, inequity, and place. Lichtenstein and Weber (2023) explore the extent to which policy responses to mortgage foreclosures account for racial disadvantage and difference, reminding us of the way in which structural systems can shape and mediate disadvantage and inequity in housing experiences. Taylor and Johnson’s (2023) paper interrogates evidence of tenancy sustainment for individuals who have experienced chronic homelessness in Australia, providing importance policy recommendations for the configuration of permanent supportive housing. Their observations, related to the suitability of housing, complements Meschede, Trivedi and Caldwell’s research (Meschede et al., 2023) into the housing inequities experienced by households with disabled members and in need of long-term services, underscoring our understanding of housing disparities related to affordability, housing quality, and neighborhood quality. This focus on housing needs is further explored by Yust and Meghdari (2023), whose surveying of residents in a Midwestern urban neighborhood explored what residents value the most and least about their housing. These findings revealed little difference between newer and longer-term residents, offering insights into the relationship between housing, place, and length of residency. Yazdanpanahi and Woolrych (2023) explored themes related to aging in place, interviewing older members of a Turkish-speaking community in London to explain their perceptions of their social, and physical environment. This insight into the experiences of belonging and attachment to place emphasizes the importance of considering housing not just for its physical properties, but for its social and cultural role within communities.

A transition in editorial team, also means a change in the editorial board. We recognize the support and effort that the board has put into the journal over the last four years. Thank you to all those who have supported the journal on the board and through reviewing articles. Several members of the board are continuing for another term, our special thanks to them for providing continuity and your ongoing support. We are also delighted to welcome new editorial board members. The editorial team is marked by its substantive and broad contribution to knowledge of housing and society and the intellectual breadth which we are seeking to encourage. We hope that many of the board will be leading special issues over the next four years, so look out for calls for papers from them.

Housing and Society will continue to be true to its mission to publish outstanding housing scholarship across diverse disciplinary foci. To further our aims, we will be introducing three key new additions. First, each issue will have an editorial article. It is clear that the diversity of articles in Housing and Society is a strength, but drawing out some of the connections between state of the art scholarship and the relationship to of-the-moment housing practice and news can be supported through editorial content. Second, we will expand the geographical reach of the submissions. In partnership with HERA, we have agreed that a key focus is to increase the number of high-quality submissions from parts of the world under-represented in the journal, and this has been part of our selection strategy for the new editorial board. Third, we are encouraging state-of-the-art articles on key topics that we consider are likely to be growth areas for housing scholarship in the future. This is an open invitation for authors to submit agenda-setting articles that lay out the need for further research or theorization of particular areas of housing scholarship, but please do write to us before submitting an article as we will limit the number of these articles to one per issue, so will be highly selective in inviting full submissions.

The growth of the journal should continue to serve existing readers of Housing and Society, as well as attracting new readers. This growing community will thrive as we share rigorous and thought-provoking research, provide thorough and fair critique of each other’s work and promote the journal through our extensive inter-weaving networks. In short, the journal, as with housing and society, will flourish as we work together.

We look forward to working with you all and your correspondence.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

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.

Thomas 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.