The role of the welfare state and housing policies as a medium and outcome of rising inequality in the cities

In recent decades economic, social, and political changes have aggravated social inequality in most European countries, accelerating differences in living conditions between social groups and neighbourhoods alike.
In this context, far from being seen as fixed entities measured only by their functional and morphological qualities, residential districts have come to be seen as an expression of socio-economic and symbolic differences and inequalities. From this perspective, the relative position of social groups in the occupational class structure and in the spatial structure becomes a privileged field of empirical inquiry for scientists concerned with inequality in all its multidimensional forms.
The aim of this paper is to draw up the lines between social and spatial inequality in cities through discussion of the role of housing policies and housing markets as an outcome of the rise of inequality in the city.
In order to capture the complex chain of factors that influence the social geography of cities and their patterns and trends of inequality, this paper seeks to engage with key thinkers such as Pierre Bourdieu, Gosta Esping-Andersen, and Jim Kemeny.
In doing so, we raise several research questions concerning the role of the welfare state as a causal mechanism of social and spatial stratification. Hence what are the main differences between typologies of welfare and housing regimes regarding economic and social inequality? To what extent do they variously project socio-economic inequality across the residential space? In other words, how are struggles over space regulated by urban policies that adhere to different worlds of welfare and housing regimes?