Disadvantaged Urban Neighbourhoods and Communities

Presentation by Eva Andersson, 2025–2026 fellow at the Paris IAS with the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond Chair and professor at Stockholm University, as part of a working group at the ENHR (European Network for Housing Research) conference in Oslo in 2026.

June 30 to July 3 2026, the ENHR Conference in Oslo will gather researchers, policymakers, and housing professionals to explore how changing housing systems shape and are shaped by social stratification, urban development, and economic transformation. What is the role of homeownership in a period marked by housing affordability crises, rising wealth gaps, and demographic change? Once seen as a pathway to security and social mobility, homeownership now also reinforces inequality and segregation in many cities. How do these dynamics occur, and how are housing systems adapting to demographic and economic change? Will policymakers manage to address these challenges?

Presentation of the working group "Disadvantaged Urban Neighbourhoods and Communities"

Chairs: Ida Borg (Stockholm University), Eva Andersson (Paris IAS, Stockholm University) and Arthur Acolin (Washington University).

We welcome contributions on the Oslo’ conference theme ‘Housing and Prosperity in the 21st Century: Social, Spatial and Historical Inequalities.’ This theme directly aligns with this working group focus on the social mechanisms behind and the implications of concentrated poverty and deprivation, segregation between various socio-economic groups, and broader social and spatial inequalities. Other topics of interest are life course trajectories, social networks, social capital, or social cohesion, and neighbourhood effects, as well as policies targeting matters in neighbourhoods and urban areas, such as social mix and de-concentration policies. Another focus concerns the question of how neighbourhoods and their residents deal with the impacts of macro trends such as welfare state retrenchment, austerity regimes, and budget cuts. While quantitative modelling has become prominent in the workshop, we very much welcome qualitative research. Furthermore, we are particularly keen to discuss new approaches focussing on analysis of registry data, (linked) open data and social media feeds, specialised evaluation approaches and mixed-methods designs that innovatively combine qualitative and quantitative approaches. The workshop has always maintained very high standards in the research it selects and it is intended that this approach will continue.

Organisers

Organised and hosted by the European Housing Research Network and Norwegian Social Research, Oslo Metropolitan University.