Real estate agency: land, housing and finance in urban and planning history conference

This report provides an overview of the 17th meeting of the Australasian Urban History/Planning History Group, held on Gadigal Country at the University of Sydney from 11 to 13 July 2024. The 2024 conference welcomed papers on diverse topics, but particularly encouraged contributions relating to possession and dispossession, housing histories and FIRE (Fire, Insurance, Real Estate). Over 60 papers were presented. The use of real estate, and the delineation of property as a tool of dispossession was a theme that ran through many of the papers, as was the unbuilt theme, which serendipitously threaded through presentations focused on many different cities.