The Sociology and Geography of Homeownership and Mortgage Markets

[i]Call for papers[/i] Paper session at the RC21 International Conference on Urban Justice and Sustainability, August 22-25, 2007 Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada From the late 1970s till the early 1990s debates on homeownership and mortgage markets were at the centre of urban sociology and human geography (e.g. David Harvey, Peter Saunders). Although the attention in social science has waned, the importance of homeownership and mortgage markets to cities and societies has not. To the contrary: homeownership rates have steadily increased in most countries and mortgage markets have grown dramatically and now represent almost €12/$15.5 trillion worldwide. This expansion has happened at a time that most social scientists, including those in urban studies, have paid little attention to these issues and have left the analysis of homeownership and mortgage markets to economists. The rise of predatory lending has resulted in a new interest among social scientists in mortgage markets. But more issues beg the attention of social scientists: credit scoring, risk-based pricing, securitization (secondary mortgage markets), globalization of mortgage markets, geographical selection (redlining), and so on. The aim of this session is to put the debate on homeownership and mortgage markets back in the centre of social science in general, and urban studies in particular. Please send the title and abstract of your paper to a session organizer and the RC21 Secretary Fernando Diaz Orueta ( [url=mailto:Fernando.Diaz@ua.es]Fernando.Diaz@ua.es[/url] ) by[b] April 30, 2007[/b] For details see:http://www.msu.edu/user/fujitak/Vancouver2007.htm