This book presents fourteen original contributions by authors examining the importance of dwellings and local communities in people's everyday lives. Through qualitative research conducted in North America and Europe, the volume explores the ways in which home is created both ideally and practically, at levels ranging from individual housing units to neighborhoods and public spaces. Even when the circumstances of making one's home deviate from cultural ideals - for instance, in crowded, institutional, or stigmatized housing contexts, in disadvantaged or transient neighborhoods, or when one has no permanent dwelling at all - the authors illuminate how experiences and practices of home are central to what it means to be human.