Housing is a fundamental human need, a policy arena, and a lived experience. It is also a market commodity and a financialized asset, increasingly shaped by global corporate actors. The ways in which housing is produced, regulated, and inhabited reflect broader socio-economic structures and contribute to spatial inequalities. Across the world, access to housing is becoming more precarious as financial speculation drives up costs (Aalbers, 2016), and state policies often fail to protect those most vulnerable (van Gent and Hochstenbach, 2020), leading to displacement and exclusion (Hilbrandt and Dimitrakou, 2022). At the same time, these structural forces are experienced in deeply personal ways as individuals and communities navigate displacement pressures, struggle for stability, and reimagine alternative housing models (Keller, 2024).

This theme issue explores housing inequality through three interrelated dimensions: the housing market, housing policy and planning, and lived experience of housing. Rather than treating these dimensions as separate, the contributions in this issue examine their entanglement: how market forces, policy decisions, and everyday struggles intersect to shape housing outcomes. Adopting a broad geographic and conceptual scope, this theme issue does not impose a singular definition of housing inequality. Instead, it brings together diverse perspectives that highlight the uneven geographies of displacement, financialization, and exclusion, as well as efforts to reclaim housing as a social good. Through case studies on urban densification, green gentrification, cooperative housing, and tenant struggles, this issue develops a critical and situated understanding of housing inequalities in Switzerland and beyond. While recognizing the specificity of each case, it also draws broader theoretical and empirical insights, contributing to ongoing debates on housing justice, urban governance, and spatial inequality. Rather than framing housing crises as isolated emergencies, this issue underscores their structural and systemic nature.

References:

Aalbers, M. B.: The Financialization of Housing: A Political Economy Approach, Routledge, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315668666, 2016.
Hilbrandt, H. and Dimitrakou, I.: Responsibility for housing: Property, displacement, and the rental market, Geoforum, 131, 69–78, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.02.008, 2022.
Keller, J.: Feeling–living–fighting the housing crisis: Testimonio as methodology in geographic housing research, Soc. Cult. Geogr., 26, 397–414, https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2024.2403758, 2024.
van Gent, W. and Hochstenbach, C.: The neo-liberal politics and socio-spatial implications of Dutch post-crisis social housing policies, International Journal of Housing Policy, 20, 156–172, https://doi.org/10.1080/19491247.2019.1682234, 2020.