Call for papers on “Space inequalities, property development and urban injustice”, Royal Geographical Society Sept 2-4th 2026, London.
No Space Like Home? Space inequalities, property development and urban injustice
organised by Ruth Neville (CASA, UCL), Katherine Brickell (Geography, KCL); Helen Carr (Law, University of Southampton); Ella Harris (Geography, KCL); Phil Hubbard (Geography, KCL), Iliana Ortega-Alcazar (Geography & Planning, University of Sheffield); Jon Reades (CASA, UCL) and Eleanor Wilkinson (Geography & Planning, University of Sheffield).
Housing systems around the world are being reshaped by affordability pressures, demographic changes, and shifting policies, with many of the latter favouring densification and the delivery of new housing at pace. While debates around housing often focus on the rate and price at which additional housing units are provided, less attention has been paid to the unequal distribution of housing space itself. This means we lack understanding of how much domestic space different social groups and populations have access to, where this is located, and how this enhances, or diminishes their quality of life. This is despite the consensus that the dimensionality of housing helps determine whether it functions not simply as a shelter, but as a space that feels like home.
The session aims to advance understandings of how housing space is produced, valued, contested, and lived, and how it might be governed or redistributed in support of more just and liveable housing futures. The session invites researchers to engage with the multiple inequalities in the allocation and distribution of housing and dwelling space. Rather than privileging a single method or perspective, the session is designed to place different forms of approach in dialogue. Bringing together qualitative approaches to the materiality and meaning of homespace, with quantitative approaches that map, model, and quantify housing inequalities, housing dimensionality, and densification, the session hopes to open up critical dialogue as to what different forms of data can and cannot capture about the unequal distribution of housing space.
It does so to raise questions about the importance of housing as the basis of social justice and the ‘right to the city’, noting the availability of affordable and adequate housing space as a basic human right. We hence invite papers that analyse the production, governance, and experience of housing space across diverse contexts, including work on: very small dwellings and micro-housing; overcrowding and under-occupation; the dimensionality of temporary or insecure accommodation; housing quality and the enforcement of space standards; housing sustainability, sufficiency and the proliferation of empty/second homes; and the uneven distribution of domestic and semi-domestic spaces such as gardens, communal areas, and neighbourhood infrastructures.
We particularly welcome contributions that explore, amongst others, the following:
The measurement, mapping or modelling of inequalities in housing space, quality, and affordability using different data sources
The use of qualitative, creative or sensory methods to explore the affective, emotional and relational dimensions of domestic space
Health discrimination and the well-being impacts of social overcrowding and space insufficiency
The environmental and social sustainability of different allocations and distributions of housing space
The role of planning, policy, and regulatory frameworks in encouraging equality of access to housing space
The significance of prop-tech, platform economies and finance in the changing distribution of housing space
Please submit your 250 word abstract to Ruth Neville (ruth.neville@ucl.ac.uk) and Phil Hubbard (philip.hubbard@kcl.ac.uk) by Friday 20th February 2026. Abstracts should include the title of the presentation and details of authors and affiliations. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.