Central themes
This Working Group focuses on urban neighbourhoods and local communities. We are interested in the social mechanisms behind and the implications of concentrated poverty and deprivation, segregation between various socio-economic groups, and broader social inequalities between residents. Other topics of interest are life course trajectories, social networks, social capital, or social cohesion, and neighbourhood effects, as well as policies targeting matters in neighbourhoods and urban areas, such as social mix, tenure types, and de-concentration policies. Another focus concerns how neighbourhoods and their residents deal with the impacts of macro trends such as welfare state retrenchment, austerity regimes, budget cuts, and shifts in migration patterns.

While quantitative modelling has become prominent in the workshop, we very much welcome qualitative research. Furthermore, we are particularly keen to discuss new approaches focussing on analysis of register data, (linked) open data and social media feeds, specialised evaluation approaches (e.g. realist evaluation) and mixed-methods designs that innovatively combine qualitative and quantitative approaches. The workshop has always maintained very high standards in the research it selects and it is intended that this approach will continue.

Activities in 2024
We organized an active workshop at the annual ENHR conference arranged in Delft, the Netherlands. Our WG had six workshops a majority of which had three presentations (1/2 h per presentation). The workshops had 15 to 25 participants and listeners in the room.

We believe the presentations were all high quality and fit well together and there were many exciting and interested comments and discussions in the room. Themes that were popular this year were suburban/urban regeneration linked to presentations on ghetto legislation, stigmatization and gated communities. Moreover, we also had several presentations on gentrification and the built environment. In addition, neighbourhood effects as well as segregation and home ownership vis-à-vis the rental sector, was discussed. Residential mobility and public transport accessibility as well as residential preferences were other themes presented and discussed in the workshop at the Delft ENHR conference.  

Future plans and activities
We plan to participate in the annual conference of 2025 in Paris, France. The following text was submitted to the conference website.

We welcome contributions on the Paris’ conference theme ‘Affordable housing in greening cities’ with emphasise on the affordability aspect. This Working Group focuses on urban neighbourhoods and local communities. We are interested in the social mechanisms behind and the implications of concentrated poverty and deprivation, segregation between various socio-economic groups, and broader social inequalities between residents. Other topics of interest are life course trajectories, social networks, social capital, or social cohesion, and neighbourhood effects, as well as policies targeting matters in neighbourhoods and urban areas, such as social mix, tenure types, and de-concentration policies. Another focus concerns how neighbourhoods and their residents deal with the impacts of macro trends such as welfare state retrenchment, austerity regimes, budget cuts, and shifts in migration patterns.
While quantitative modelling has become prominent in the workshop, we very much welcome qualitative research. Furthermore, we are particularly keen to discuss new approaches focussing on analysis of register data, (linked) open data and social media feeds, specialised evaluation approaches (e.g. realist evaluation) and mixed-methods designs that innovatively combine qualitative and quantitative approaches. The workshop has always maintained very high standards in the research it selects and it is intended that this approach will continue.

We plan to collaborate and gather joint sessions with Rikke Skovgaard Nielsen and Gideon Bolt’s WG on Minority Ethnic Groups and Housing on “The Integration into the Housing Market of Immigrants and their Descendants.” There is a project to include presentations as part of these joint sessions into a potential special issue on the housing outcomes of immigrants and their descendants across European countries.

Policy implications
Many of the researchers involved in the Working Group are conducting cutting-edge research, sometimes with close involvement of policymakers. In light of the complexities of making an impact on urban policies, both locally and nationally (let alone on EU level), we feel that we need to continue or even strengthen our efforts to disseminate research findings among policymakers. We are open to suggestions on how the Working Group might facilitate impact and knowledge exchange in this area.

Other
While quantitative modelling has become prominent in the workshop, we very much welcome qualitative research. Furthermore, we are particularly keen to discuss new approaches focussing on analysis of register data, (linked) open data and social media feeds, specialised evaluation approaches (e.g. realist evaluation) and mixed-methods designs that innovatively combine qualitative and quantitative approaches. The workshop has always maintained very high standards in the research it selects and it is intended that this approach will continue.