Housing Hope: the place of politics and people in housing governance

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This research examines how local governments are transforming their role in housing provision, with powerful impacts on inequality and local politics in British cities. In particular, it examines the growth of a North Eastern local authority under austerity, into a housing developer via a complex and opaque process of partnerships and associated financial arrangements. It therefore offers an important case study of housing transformation, in a field that is often dominated by research in London; revealing distinct geographical differences in how housing governance is unfolding across the UK. These findings are particularly important in highlighting what is at stake in the contemporary provision of social housing, who is involved and importantly who is not. Urgent questions about housing and the condition of local democracy are therefore posed through such findings. Timely and topical in current debates on housing and urban development nationally - across academia, the media and political life - this fellowship will publish and promote these important research findings by translating them into various valuable outputs. It will therefore offer a powerful steer to future research, policy and practice, and housing activism. Furthermore, consolidating my PhD research in this way will enable me to develop to the next stage of my academic career and launch a new area of research on 'housing hope', which explores the politics of social housing provision through people's hopes and expectations of it in times of uncertainty and change. Significant at a time of prolonged austerity and when is activism is on the rise, this research will investigate the relationship of people and the state. It seeks to understand if hope can become a potential political resource in uncertain and precarious times. Can hope and expectation lead to more egalitarian practices and change in housing provision?