June 2011
Presentation by Donald Houston Impacts of demographic change and climate change on pluvial flood risk. Adaptation Scotland Conference, Edinburgh, June 2011.
May 23 2011
CHR PhD student Alice Oldfield organised an Early-Career Symposium on ‘The Social Dynamics of Neighbourhood’. The one-day event attracted around 20 early-career researchers from across the UK and beyond. Drawing on national and international case studies, the presentations offered interesting insights into how neighbourhoods simultaneously influence and are influenced by a range of actors.
May 20th 2011
Dr Kim McKee represented CHR at an Urban Studies seminar (University of Glasgow) at which Profs Mark Stephens and Ken Gibb presented some of their recent JRF funded work from the Housing Market Taskforce and the Housing and Neighbourhoods Monitor.
April 18-19 2011
To coincide with Professor Bill Clark’s visit to the UK, the Centre for Housing Research held a two-day seminar on 'New Demographics and the Housing System'.
April 15th 2011
Dr Kim McKee (along with Jenny Muir, QUB) organised and convened the annual Housing Studies Association conference in York, 13-15 April. The theme of the conference was Housing in Hard Times: class, poverty and social exclusion. It attracted nearly 100 delegates and over 65 papers from across academia, policy and practice. Papers are available online: http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/chp/hsa/spring11/index.htm
April 7-8 2011
The ESRC-sponsored seminar “Neighbourhood effects, neighbourhood based problems and international policy solutions” took place on the 7th-8th April 2011 at the University of Glasgow and was co-organised by the Centre for Housing Research.
April 1st 2011
New paper: Reuschke D. 2011 Jenseits traditioneller Haushaltskonzeptionen - multilokale Lebensformen und ihre Auswirkungen auf Großstädte und Agglomerationsräume. Weimarpolis - Multidisciplinary Journal of urban Theory and Practice 2 (1): 3-24 [Beyond traditional household conceptions – multilocational living arrangements and their impacts on big cities and agglomerations]
April 2011
From April 2011, CHR will be working directly with local authorities in England to provide evidence-based research to inform policy and practice for housing-related support services. Directed by Dr Alison Sandeman, the project builds on the expertise of the Supporting People team at CHR. Over a third of local authorities in England have signed-up to participate within one week of the launch announcement.
Dr Kim McKee has been commissioned by the Glasgow and West of Scotland Forum of Housing Associations to lead their response to the Scottish Government's recent regeneration discussion document: 'Building a Sustainable Future'. The response will emphasise the social contribution of community-based-housing organisations and their important role as community anchors (£5,000).
New paper: McKee, K. (2011) 'Sceptical, Disorderly and Paradoxical Subjects: problematizing the "will to empower" in social housing governance', Housing, Theory and Society 28 (1): 1-18.
March 29th 2011
'Investing in Better Places', a compilation of essays on the growing importance of investing in place infrastructure, including transit and housing, to support local economies, carbon reductions and social equality, was launched in the House of Lords. The book was edited by Sharon Chisholm and is a joint project of the Centre for Housing Research and the Smith Institute.
March 2011
Professor Duncan Maclennan was the principal guest speaker at the Scotland’s Six Cities Influencers’ Dinner on 28 March, hosted by the Scottish Council for Development and Industry in partnership with The City of Edinburgh Council.
March 24th 2011
Professor Duncan Maclennan was a keynote speaker at the Scottish Council for Development and Industry’s annual forum held in St. Andrews.
March 22nd 2011
A one-day conference on 'Investing in Better Places' was held in Edinburgh and attracted close to 100 participants interested in connecting their work to place investment.
March 16th 2011
Professor Duncan Maclennan was the keynote speaker at the CIH Scotland Annual Conference.
March 2nd 2011
Dr Kim McKee was invited to deliver a seminar paper at the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research, Sheffield Hallam University. Kim's paper: "Challenging the Norm? The Ethopolitics of Low-Cost Homeownership in Scotland", has recently been accepted for publication in the journal of Urban Studies.
March 1st 2011
Dr Darja Reuschke (along with Prof Monika Salzbrunn and Dr Korinna Schoenhaerl) is awarded a grant (£20,000) from the Mercator Foundation (Essen, Germany) for publishing the book ‘Ruhr Area and Istanbul: The Economies of Urban Diversity’. The volume collects papers presented at a seminar which took place on the 11-13th January 2011 at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (University Essen-Duisburg, Germany).
March 2011
Dr Donald Houston has been awarded £10,000 from the Church of Scotland (with Dr Alistair Geddess, University of Dundee) to examine rural deprivation across Scotland. The project will use a Geographical Information System (GIS) to examine spatial patterns in multiple deprivation, including housing related factors such as housing without central heating and households living in overcrowded conditions. In addition, GIS will be used to examine the resource implications associated with providing services to dispersed populations.
Dr Beverley Searle joined the Housing Statistics Network Steering Group.
CHR Deputy Director Maarten van Ham has been appointed Professor of Human Geography at the University of St Andrews.
New papers:
Bergstrom, L., van Ham, M., & Manley, D. (In press) Neighbourhood choice and neighbourhood reproduction. Environment and Planning A.
Manley, D., & Van Ham, M. (In press) Choice-based letting, ethnicity and segregation in England. Urban Studies
February 14th 2011
Maarten van Ham gave an invited lecture at the Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience seminar series, 14 February 2011, Durham University. Title presentation: Are deprived neighbourhoods risky neighbourhoods to live in? Theorising and modelling neighbourhood effects.
February 1st 2011
New book chapter: Reuschke, D. 2011 Postmoderne Mobilitäten: Zirkuläre räumliche Mobilität über große Distanzen für Beruf und Partnerschaft. In: Badura, J., Duchêne-Lacroix, C., Heidenreich, F. (eds.): Praxen der Unrast: Von der Reiselust bis zur modernen Mobilität. Se faire mobile: Du gout au voyage à la mobilité moderne. Kultur und Technik No. 22. Munster: LIT, pp. 147-162. [Postmodern mobilities: circular spatial mobility over long distances for job and partner reasons]
February 2011
Houston, D.S. Demographic distribution of flood risk. SNIFFER Flood Risk Management Conference, Edinburgh.
January 27th 2011
Sharon Chisholm attended an event to launch the ‘Delivering Better Places in Scotland’ good practice guide and publication of place-making case-studies from the 6 Urban Regeneration Companies in Scotland.
January 18th 2011
Alex Neil, Minister of Housing and Communities, visited the Centre for Housing Research at the University of St Andrews to discuss key housing policy issues facing Scotland with research staff. The Minister was joined by Andy Parks and Sara Dodds from the Centre of Housing Policy Analysis. During the two hour meeting, there was a lively discussion on the areas of research that could support current policy areas. Participants found the meeting helped identify potential future collaborations and decided to continue to meet periodically.
January 12th 2011
Sharon Chisholm co-ordinated an international meeting by conference call which included all writers to discuss directions, audience and expected outcomes of the book Investing in Better Places. The book is to be published by the Smith Institute in June, 2011.
January 11-13 2011
Dr Darja Reuschke along with colleagues from Ruhr Universities (Germany) organised a seminar titled The economy of urban diversity: Ruhr Area - Istanbul at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (University Essen-Duisburg) funded by the Mercator Foundation within the framework of the European Capital of Culture 2010. It brought together an international group of established researchers, early career researchers, museums directors and planners from various disciplines.
January 2011
Dr Beverley Searle has received £30k, as part of a £1.2m project funded through the EPSRC/ESRC Next Generation Resilience programme. Resilient Futures: Modelling the Future Resilience of UK Critical Infrastructure (R-Futures) is a collaboration between Southampton (Lead institution), Durham, Loughborough, York, Newcastle, the University of Essex, King’s College London and St Andrews.
The project is concerned with future developments in the UK’s energy and transport infrastructures and the resilience of these systems to natural and malicious threats and hazards. Combining methods from the social and engineering sciences it will develop an interactive demonstrator system that operationalises resilience for a wide range of decision makers and stakeholders.
Beverley's contribution will focus on grounded engagement of front-line stakeholders to inform the development of the simulation models, policy and decision making at different levels of governance. She will also explore resilience dynamics and interdependencies and the interface between community resilience and the policy context through joint supervision (with Durham) of a PhD on The Evolution of Community Resilience.
New Paper: Searle BA (2011) Recession and Housing Wealth, Journal of Financial Economic Policy, Special Issue: "Homeownership: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow", 33, 1.
Glasgow and West of Scotland Forum of Housing Associations (GWSF) have launched their response to the Scottish Government's Regeneration Discussion Document: 'Building a Sustainable Future'. The response, led by Dr Kim McKee (CHR), emphasises the pivotal role Community-Controlled Housing Associations (CCHAs) play as community anchors, and the social and economic value they add through their regeneration activities. Moreover, it underlines the importance of area-based interventions in tackling concentrated poverty in Scotland's most deprived communities. As Dr McKee notes: "CCHAs are more than just social landlords. Given their local scale and place-based focus they are important anchor organisations in their communities, and make significant contributions to cross-cutting policy agendas around health, poverty and worklessness". For more information, please visit the