DrRichard Waldron

My research covers many areas of urban planning and development, housing studies and environmental policy with a particular focus on the operation of property markets, planning governance and socio-spatial inequalities. In this regard, my work spans a number of inter-related research strands:

The Political Economy of Housing

This research examines the reproduction of material inequalities within housing systems, markets and policies, and how such inequalities are generated via structural determinants, social discourses, everyday practices and governance mechanisms. My doctoral research, funded by the Irish Research Council, examined the drivers and social consequences of the Irish property market crash, and the social and economic distribution of mortgage stress, and the impacts on health and quality of life. Working with the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive, I have examined homeless individuals’ patterns of emergency accommodation use to gain better insights into their complex care needs and to inform policy and practice responses. This research had a significant impact on policy and informed the budgetary allocation for the Housing First model in Dublin. More recent work, funded by the Housing Agency, examines the political economy of the private rental sector and the reproduction of precarious housing conditions. 

The Governance of Planning

A second research strand examines the governance of the planning system, and the ways that political-economic conditions and sectoral interests shape institutional and regulatory change, and their socio-economic impact on the city. My postdoctoral research, funded by the Urban Studies Foundation, examined how the circuits of finance capital were re-booted into Ireland’s post-crisis real estate market, and how the ‘real estate-financial complex’ lobbied for new investment structures and planning policy instruments to enhance the financial viability of development. More recently, I have examined the application of new governance tools within other aspects of planning. Through the PERMAGOV project, I analyse how new digital technologies and data capturing tools are being deployed to shape decision making within marine spatial planning. Through the SURE-CORE consortium, I examined the governance of Ireland’s urban historic cores, and the ways that heritage assets were being mobilised as part of wider economic regeneration efforts. 

Urban Sustainability

This is an emerging research strand that examines the intersection of socio-spatial inequality, sustainability and the just transition, with a particular focus on energy poverty and policy formulation. My Housing Agency funded grant (HOPED) uses quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the relationship between energy deprivation and precarious housing conditions, and their socio-economic impacts in Ireland. As part of the C-NEWTRAL project (MSCA funded), I will examine the potential policy tensions between housing affordability ambitions and climate goals, and how the State navigates between the interests of industry and citizens in responding to housing sustainability-affordability nexus. With Gertjan Wijburg, I am developing a new writing project on the varieties of green capitalism and green investment within urban real estate