Setting the Scene: Transformations in Irish Housing -- Owner Occupation and the Housing Market -- The Housing Market and Owner Occupation in Ireland -- Access Denied? The Challenge of Affordability for Sustainable Access to Housing -- Housing Expenditures, Housing Poverty and Housing Wealth: Irish Home Owners Brian Nolan In Comparative Context -- The Private Rented Sector -- The Private Rented Sector -- Uneven Development and the Private Rental Market: Problems and Prospectsfor Low-Income Households -- Urban Renewal and the Private Rented Sector -- Social Housing -- Social Housing -- Reforming Local Authority Housing Management: The Case of Tenant Participation in Estate Management -- The Changing Nature of the Housing Association Sector -- Housing and Inequality -- Housing, Equality and Inequality -- Homelessness -- Accommodating the Traveller Community -- Housing, Planning and the Built Environment -- Spatial Planning Frameworks and Housing -- Planning and Sustainability: Metropolitan Planning, Housing and Land Policy -- Urban Design and Residential Environments -- Rural Housing: Politics, Public Policy and Planning -- Conclusion -- Irish Housing in the European Context. The period since the mid-1990s is distinguished by radical change in the housing sector in Ireland. During this time, house prices rose at an unprecedented rate. Between 1993 and 2003 the average price of a new house in the State increased by 220 percent. Private rents also grew and waiting lists for social housing lengthened. At the same time, new house building increased rapidly to one of the highest rates in the European Union. This development transformed city centres and suburbs, and also provincial towns and the countryside, which saw unprecedented construction of holiday homes and estates for commuters working in urban areas. This book, the first comprehensive review of housing in Ireland for many years, introduces, in an accessible manner, the key housing developments since the foundation of the State and also reports on the findings of the latest research on the transformation of the sector in the past decade. The issues examined here include: -the impact of the house price boom on wealth and affordability -the urban renewal schemes and private rented housing -the management of social housing -the accommodation of Travellers and homeless people -rural housing policy and politics During the past decade, Ireland's economic growth has attracted international attention. This book analyses the consequences of that growth on housing and serves as a primer to other countries on the complexities of delivering sustainable housing solutions in the face of economic success. As such, this book will be of interest to students, practitioners and policy-makers involved in the housing field worldwide and to anyone who wishes to learn more about the causes and effects of Ireland's recent housing boom.