ABSTRACT
Urban communities are facing a range of social, economic and environmental pressures many of which fall under the broad rubric of ‘sustainability’. Cities and other large urban areas are increasingly recognised as being crucial in addressing climate change and low carbon transitions (Betsill and Bulkeley, 2007; Bulkeley, 2010: Bulkeley et al., 2013). While climate change effects and those relating to other environmental problems vary depending on the location, they may involve increased risks for some communities, from flooding and drought, heatwaves, energy poverty, and transport poverty. Urban housing has become, or has the potential to become, a cornerstone of strategies to achieve greater sustainability and for climate change adaptation and mitigation. From a housing perspective, there are also very particular socio-demographic challenges which need to be addressed, in particular those related to population growth and aging, and a range of approaches are required to address these issues (see, for example, Cisneros et al., 2012). Transnational migration also demands implementing appropriate and adequate responses to meeting housing needs in some areas and to facilitate social integration and social cohesion. The economic and housing booms at the beginning of the twenty-first century had a range of impacts on housing systems and on many urban households. These include: housing affordability and household indebtedness; poor housing construction/regeneration; urban sprawl in some locations, densification in others; and long-distance commuting. In some cases, these were issues of concern prior to the boom but continued or accelerated during that period. While the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) had different effects in different countries, in certain locations there were increases in social exclusion, the financial vulnerability of households and rising homelessness. Other problems can be identified in specific regions, such as high levels of vacant dwellings, and the collapse of the construction industry.
