This paper tells the story of Felipe Pescador, a neighbourhood born of an occupation of railway lands by railway employees in Mexico City’s industrial corridor. Across disciplines, a rich literature on Latin America has critically examined housing struggles among marginalised and working-class people. But attention to individual, self-built settlements has remained a less common approach to the issue. Focused study provides an opportunity to critically examine how changes in the city’s political economy gradually shifted strategies to obtain shelter. As the heft of organised labour waned and the institutionalisation of housing demands increased, residents ultimately legitimated a pragmatic political practice – sometimes at odds with the policies of the official party, the PRI – and put property rights at the centre of their struggle. Historicising ties between property, law and politics thus complicates visions of informal housing struggles as necessarily progressive initiatives, as well as accounts of informal settlements as places of grassroots entrepreneurship.

Although there has been considerable scholarly discussion of the relationships between the infrastructure and social and economic conditions of settlements and their estimated populations, there has been virtually no investigation of the extent to which it is possible to detect similar relationships within settlements, aside from some very preliminary work on Pompeii. The aim of this article is therefore to build on earlier work and investigate whether this is indeed the case by focusing on three other sites: Delos, Herculaneum, and Ostia. The results show that there are almost identical relationships between the numbers of rooms and the total ground floor footprints of the residential units within these settlements, despite their different social and economic contexts. This demonstrates, for the first time, that these effects are not just confined to one site and that we may be dealing with a relatively widespread phenomenon.

Cats are among the most popular pets worldwide. However, regulations on the protection of their welfare in breeding establishments are scarce. Our study documented management, reproduction, and welfare issues, as well as their possible associations, in a sample of 512 members of the Associazione Nazionale Felina Italiana (ANFI) using an online survey. In particular, univariable and multivariable logistic mixed-effects regression models were used to assess potential associations between management-related practices and animal welfare proxies (i.e. stillbirth, death at weaning, C-section, reproductive success). Italian cat breeders reported being mainly amateurs, with a median of three queens. Cats were predominantly kept indoors, and 94.1% of breeders reported having a nursery. Approximately half of the queens were bred for the first time at or before one year of age (48.5%); however, we suggest postponing first mating, using contraceptives when needed to support reproductive management. Mean stillbirth and pre-weaning mortality were 4.3 and 3.5%, respectively. Mortality rates were lower than those reported in previous national and international studies. Although breed was not statistically significant in any model, Persian, Bengal, and Maine Coon showed the highest observed overall litter mortality rates. In the multivariable model, stillbirth occurrence was associated with litter size, C-section, and male cohousing with the females’ group. C-sections were required in 6.4% of breeding events and were associated with reduced space allowance. Our results need to be interpreted with caution, but they could still provide useful evidence-based recommendations to inform welfare policy changes.

Ageing of the population is an ineluctable process with major implications. We review effects of ageing on housing markets and related policy issues. Demographic effects are detectable for housing, with the working population tending to drive prices up while retired groups restrain it but only to a limited degree. The elderly desire bequests and precautionary saving and prefer not to sell or borrow against existing property. Among policy issues are availability of equity extraction loans, transaction costs for elderly households wishing to trade down and factors underlying availability of alternative and more suitable housing for elderly people.

Recent governments, both in the UK and internationally, have increasingly used their power to attempt to alter the behaviour of people in receipt of social security benefits. This can be seen in the case of the UK’s benefit cap, a policy introduced with the specific goal of changing behaviour by capping social security support at the household level. Alongside promoting transitions into employment, there was also a focus on encouraging households to move to cheaper accommodation, something which was portrayed as achievable by those defending the policy. Drawing on case studies from qualitative longitudinal research with parents affected by the benefit cap, this article demonstrates that individuals are, in fact, relatively powerless to change their housing situations, which are routinely already overcrowded and of poor quality, even where rents are very high. Instead, affected households experience state-imposed hardship. We problematise both the cap itself and the governmental narrative that knowingly ascribes social security recipients with a power they do not have.

Over the past decade, high rental prices have become an increasingly serious problem in major Western European cities. While political science research has started to explore the broader political consequences, the local effects on renters in particular remain understudied. Furthermore, little is known about the influence of additional local characteristics that potentially impact the political consequences of high rental prices. This study addresses these research gaps by examining how local rental prices affect renters’ satisfaction with the local public administration, using large-N geocoded survey data collected in forty neighborhoods across ten major German cities. Multilevel regression results reveal a negative relationship between high rental prices and satisfaction with the local public administration that is not offset by greater rental housing availability or the provision of public services. In practical terms, these findings highlight the far-reaching consequences of high rental prices for the political satisfaction of renters, underlining the need for policies that ensure affordable urban housing.

The political and social preferences of homeowners command significant attention from political scientists. Homeownership appears to make individuals more politically right-wing in their preferences over redistribution and increases their political activism. Comparatively little is known about renters. While often treated as a single group, our main argument is that renters are heterogeneous in their political preferences and behaviour. Our contribution is to differentiate between renters who would like to own, a group we call “prospective homeowners,” and those who would prefer to rent, or “satisfied renters.” We use a first-of-its-kind, nationally representative survey of Canadian renters to show that prospective homeowners are more right-wing than satisfied renters but are not more likely to vote for right-wing parties. Our findings suggest that many of the effects ascribed to homeownership may in fact predate the purchase of a house.

Housing policy has been a busy area of activity for the Labour government in its first year. In this paper we critically assess the tensions and contradictions within these housing policy changes, examining whether they add up to a coherent, programmatic response to the ‘housing crisis’ which can deliver for individuals and households struggling to access and sustain adequate housing after fourteen years of austerity and neglect. In particular, we question the underlying driver of the housebuilding target and ask whether the Labour government’s apparent desperation for economic growth is subsuming concerns for social justice, despite the increase in support for social housing – a debate with wide international resonance in the current economic context. Finally, we scrutinise whether the rapid start out of the blocks on housing policy can be maintained for the inevitable marathon that is necessary to make significant changes to the UK housing system.

The data is clear: Earth’s temperature is on the rise, with the 10 most recent years being the hottest on record. Extreme heat is the number one weather-related killer in the United States. Laws and policies to protect individuals from the health hazards of extreme heat exposure are being contemplated across the nation at the federal, state, and local level. This paper aims to address the realities of extreme heat exposure and community needs during extreme heat. First, it will define important terms relevant to heat as used in climate science, occupational health, public health, and other fields. Second, it will describe heat exposure and needed protections for vulnerable populations, such as communities located in urban heat islands, those experiencing direct heat exposure in the workplace and those who lack access to cooling equipment at home. Last, the paper will explore law and policy approaches to address the health impacts of extreme heat, including a focused discussion of two different areas of the country: Florida and New York City.

The ecological transition needs a shift in the definition of the role of the state from a market-correcting to a market-steering actor. This transformation inevitably reverberates within private law, whose institutions participate in distributing the social and economic burdens of sustainability policies. Focusing on the housing sector as a paradigmatic site of tension between environmental imperatives and social justice, the paper examines how measures aimed at improving the energy performance of buildings and promoting urban greening can generate regressive distributive effects, including rising housing costs, green gentrification, and heightened risks of indebtedness and displacement for vulnerable groups. Against this background, the paper argues that private law must be reconceptualised as a tool capable of mitigating these structural inequities.

What explains the contested conditions for migrant worker citizenship under socialism? Migration scholarship often elides socialist contexts, tracing migrant deservingness to the neoliberal rise of labor-based conditionality for legal status across Western states in the late twentieth century. However, a broader historiography suggests that socialist states, despite their institutional differences, conditioned migrant inclusion on labor performance throughout the twentieth century. To explain how this form of civic conditionality operated under socialism, this paper draws on the case of migrant “limit” worker management in Moscow from the early 1960s to 1987. Using archival materials, I show that state-owned enterprises operated as migration intermediaries, establishing and enforcing a labor-based conditionality for local citizenship even as the state pursued additional civic aims. I find that civic campaigns initiated in the early 1960s provided an ideological framework and material base for enterprises to govern migrant workers at their dormitories. Managers and officials at the dormitory redirected resources intended for social activism and cultural tutelage toward ensuring baseline productivity and compliance. Enterprise managers and union officials additionally substituted the material conditions at the dormitory for the assessments of individual migrants’ moral and productive status. This paper extends the literature on migrant deservingness to a socialist context, showing how conditionality for civic inclusion develops beyond the neoliberal shifts in contemporary citizenship.

A large number of young adults still live with their parents because they have difficulties entering the job market, because of low wages, or the cost of housing. Despite much research in social science on the consequences of this salient social trend, we lack an understanding of its implications for public opinion. This research note fills this gap by investigating whether such living arrangements between working age children and their parents is correlated with household members' political stances. Specifically, I expect that the anxiety induced by seeing their children having difficulties to become independent will lead parents to hold more negatives political stances, while the same outcome is expected from working age children who failed to fly the nest compared to their independent peers. Using data from the European Social Survey in 32 countries covering the period between 2002 and 2016, I show that, for both parents and young adults, cohabitation is associated with negative evaluations of the national economy and of the government's performance. Studies that do not take into account the situation of other household members might miss an important part of the opinion formation puzzle.

Social integration is a critical predictor of health and wellbeing for older people, yet limited research examines how older people experiencing homelessness navigate social integration and what their needs are. This study explores how 20 older adults with lived experiences of homelessness and housing precarity perceive and experience social integration in an independent housing setting with on-site support. Additionally, it aims to identify the factors that facilitate and promote social integration for this population. Drawing on semi-structured lifecourse interviews and photovoice sessions, reflexive thematic analysis identified four key themes: (1) From isolation to inclusion: narratives on social integration; (2) Space, place and social integration; (3) Unlocking pathways to deep and meaningful social interactions; and (4) Navigating social integration: the vital role of autonomy and choice. The findings reveal that social integration exists along a continuum. While some participants valued solitude and independence, others actively sought meaningful connections, or occupied a middle ground, engaging in casual interactions. Social integration was influenced by three factors: the built and natural environment, opportunities for deep and meaningful interactions, and individual autonomy and choice. These findings add to the knowledge and debate surrounding the definition of social integration and its contributory factors, especially for older adults with experiences of homelessness and housing precarity. The study underscores the need for different housing models and environments to accommodate and cater across the social integration continuum, ensuring that everyone can find their place within the community and engage in a way that feels comfortable and fulfilling for them.