Housing affordability and the city. Disentangling the urban and spatial dimensions of housing affordability in Europe

This article deals with the multidimensional and contested notion of housing affordability (HA). In the past century, scholars (especially in Anglo-Saxon countries) have widely debated on definitions, measurements and problems related to HA. The result of this debate is an extensive, complex, and often controversial body of literature that explores increasingly multidimensional approaches to the analysis of HA at various levels. The attention on the urban - rather than on the national - scale of housing problems is relatively recent and remarkably growing. Recent research has discussed the so-called "global urban housing affordability issue" (Wetzstein, 2017), which is increasingly affecting especially attractive and growing global cities. While studies have analyzed HA in connection to a variety of different issues, ranging from poverty and social policies to financialization and sociospatial inequalities, its spatial and urban dimensions and implications have not been dealt with enough in research (Haffner, Hulse, 2021). The paper contributes to expanding this knowledge by exploring the European context and focusing on the urban and spatial implications of HA, in terms, among other themes, of spatial filtering, suburbanization of poverty, spatial mismatch and accessibility to various urban opportunities. Against this backdrops, specific aims of the article are: (i) providing orientation between the different themes and issues connected to the multifaceted concept of HA from an urban and spatial perspective; (ii) highlighting advancements, unresolved issues, and possible pathways for future research; (iii) breaking new conceptual ground for the analysis of HA (and HA policies) at the local level, especially aiming at scrutinizing its spatial dimension and outcomes.