Facing the Housing Affordability Crisis in Southern Europe: Housing Policies in the Spotlight

We invite contributions to the special issue of Critical Housing Analysis entitled

Facing the Housing Affordability Crisis in Southern Europe: Housing Policies in the Spotlight

edited by Dimitra Siatitsa (University of Crete, Greece), Héctor Simón Moreno (Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain), Sandra Marques Pereira (University Institute of Lisbon, Portugal), Thorsten Heitkamp (TU Dortmund, Germany).

The aim of this special issue is to develop a reflexive analysis on the ongoing process of change of housing policies in Southern Europe. The second half of the 2010s was marked by the deepening of the housing affordability crisis, compounded by COVID 2019 pandemic, which has put the housing issue back at the centre of the social, political and academic debate. The resurgence of housing problems is a global phenomenon, acquiring contextualised characteristics that in Southern European countries relate particularly to the historical residuality of social housing policies and prevalence of homeownership, the great dependence of urban economies on tourism and fiscal measures to attract foreign investment (e.g. Golden Visa, special benefits to digital nomads, etc.) and low disposable income of households in relation to the cost of living.

Contributors may explore the contexts of housing policy change, either through a general problematisation of the changes taking place (broad policy instruments, housing regulation/legislation or organizational and governance issues), or by focusing on specific policy measures that illustrate current housing debates and challenges. The aim is to provide an overview of present discussions on these issues in a critical and theoretically grounded approach that can identify relevant trends and dynamics, in a particularly sensitive moment when the return of the State to the task of housing provision and regulation is being discussed and, in some cases, cautiously initiated.

Contributions may focus on a specific city/region/country or be comparative in scope. However, all contributions should have potentially wider policy implications so conclusions or lessons learned should be relevant for a broad group of readers from different countries. The papers should also contain a clear critical and/or innovative element.

Critical Housing Analysis publishes only short papers that undergo quick double blind peer review by at least two independent experts in the topic of the paper who are not in close working, institutional or personal relations with the author. Therefore, the contributions to the special issue must be no longer than 3,500 words, including a short abstract and references.

Critical Housing Analysis guarantees that authors are informed of the decision to publish within seven weeks of submission of the paper. The author keeps a right to re-publish the paper in expanded form in a standard academic journal later, but the authorship rights are already protected by unique DOI code from publication with Critical Housing Analysis.

More information on the publisher standards and previous articles published in Critical Housing Analysis are available at https://www.housing-critical.com

Potential contributors should submit an abstract to sehwg.enhr@gmail.com by 15 September 2023. The deadline for submission of full papers to the Special Issue is 30 January 2024. The issue (no. 2 of 2024) is planned to be released by September 2024.

Full papers should be submitted through https://housing-critical.com/submit-your-paper/ after registration of the corresponding author.