Globalization and the housing asset rich : Geographies, demographies and policy convoys

This article explores the importance of housing assets in shaping the global landscape of opportunity and disadvantage. In doing so, it is concerned with four key issues. First, it seeks to highlight the increasing significance of housing related wealth at a global scale. Second, it is concerned with the uneven and potentially divisive impact of housing asset accumulation, within and between societies. Third, it seeks to show how economic, geo-demographic and policy contexts combine to produce different outcomes for different population cohorts. Fourth, it discusses the way in which more market driven housing systems and housing wealth accumulation are changing the social policy environment. The underlying argument of the article is that the dynamics of housing markets and housing assets are of growing significance in relation to contemporary patterns of risk, opportunity, vulnerability and privilege and need to be embraced more thoroughly in social policy debate. © SAGE Publications, Inc. 2008.