The movement of housing policy across space and time has attracted considerable policy and scholarly interest. But once we accept that policy moves, interesting questions arise. Particularly: what is it that moves? Why do some policies move but others do not? Through systematic bibliographical searches, we identified 55 ‘housing’ publications to review in order to answer these questions.

We identified ‘dominant knowledge’ as the key element shaping housing policy movement; highlighted five strategic conditions for mobility (summarized as ontological, ideological, institutional, legitimizing devices, and contingency); presented the sporadic engagement with questions of immobility; and synthesized authors’ policy recommendations, particularly their calls for deeper engagement with the people affected by policies.

A short related blog is also available, click here.