Residential Mobility

1
Residential Mobility Neighbourhood Change
Chapter 12

• A Presentation By
• Brenda Hass, Dane MacVeigh
• Lisa Fournier

Source Knox, Paul and Steven Pinch. Urban
Social Geography
An Introduction. Harlow Prentice Hall,
2000, (330 354).
2
Lets Take a Survey

• Beginning from your date of birth, how many
  people have moved at least once in their life?
  Think carefully.
• Two times?
• Three times?
• Four times?
• Five or more?

3
Brendas Residential Mobility History

• Renfrew, Ontario (1983 present)
• North Bay, Ontario (2002)
• North Bay, Ontario (2003 intra-urban move)

4
Lisas Residential Mobility History

• Markham, Ontario (1983 present)
• North Bay, Ontario (2002)
• North Bay, Ontario (2003 intra-urban move 1)
• North Bay, Ontario (2004 intra-urban move 2)

5
Danes Residential Mobility History

• Edmonton, Alberta
• Surrey, British Columbia
• Hialeybury, Ontario (Tri-town)
• India
• Hialeybury, Ontario (Tri-town)
• Sudbury, Ontario
• North Bay, Ontario (2002)
• North Bay, Ontario (2003 intra-rez move 1)

6
Jamies Residential Mobility History

• I don't know the address of where I lived when I
  was a newborn....somewhere in Windsor, anyway)
  however, starting at about 6 months or so
• 1546 Stuart Blvd, LaSalle (Windsor), Ontario
  until I was about 6
• 6916 Malden Rd, LaSalle until I was about 9 years
  old
• 1050 Reaume Rd, LaSalle until I was about 24
  years old (all of the above were within 5 minutes
  drive) ??
• Richmond St. (Windsor) for about 6 months
• 110 Park Street W (Windsor) or about 1 year ??
• Chelsea Cresent (Victoria, BC) from June-October,
  1995
• 1300 Vates St. (Victoria, BC) from October,
  1995-August, 1999 ??
• Balmoral St. (Victoria, BC) until June 30, 2001
• 345 Mulligan St. (N Bay) until August, 2002
• 1642 Copeland St. (N Bay) until September, 2004
• At a friends house in Astorville from Sept til
  November, 2004
• 122 Giroux (N Bay) since
• Yikes -- that's more places than I thought.
  (James LeClair)

Victoria, B.C.
7
Key Questions Addressed in this Chapter

• Why do people move within cities?
• What patterns are generated by these moves?
• What effect do these moves have upon residential
  structures?

8
Introduction

• The shaping and reshaping of urban social areas
  is undergoing constant modification given that
  each households decision to move (or not to
  move) has repercussions for the rest of the
  system.
• Chain reactions of vacancies and moves are set
  off as dwellings become newly available, and this
  movement may itself trigger further mobility as
  households react to changes in neighbourhood
  status and tone.

9
What is Mobility?

• Mobility is seen as a product of housing
  opportunities the new and vacant dwellings
  resulting from suburban expansion, inner-city
  renewal and rehabilitation, etc. and the
  housing needs and expectations of households,
  which are themselves a product of income, family
  size and lifestyles.

10
How Does Mobility Affect Neigbourhoods?

• With a sufficient amount of mobility, the
  residential structure of any city will be
  substantially altered, resulting in changes to
  the associated neighbourhood images that help to
  attract or deter further potential movers.

11
Thoughts on Household Mobility

• When analyzing residential mobility, several
  question arise
• How many households actually move in a given
  period?
• Do particular types of households have a greater
  propensity to move than others?
• Are there any spatial regularities in the pattern
  of migration?

12
Patterns of Household Mobility

• The amount of movement by households in Western
  cities is considerable.
• Between 15 and 20 of all urban households move
  in any one year.
• Naturally, some cities experience much higher
  level of mobility than others.
• For example, cities in the West, South and Gulf
  Coast of the United States have an annual
  turnover of population that is double that of
  slow-growing cities in the North-East.
• In Europe, rates of mobility range between 5 and
  10 per cent.

13
What Triggers this Movement?

• The magnitude of this movement stems partly from
  economic and social forces
• One of the most important determinants are
  business cycles that are endemic to capitalist
  economies.
• During economic upswings the increase in
  employment opportunities and wages leads to an
  increase in the effective demand for new housing.
• In contrast, mobility rates in nine European
  cities found that mobility was chiefly related to
  the local balance between housing construction
  and population growth, the presence of foreign
  workers and population density (White, 1985)

14
Mobility vs. Stability

• Residential mobility is a selective process.
• Households of different types are not equally
  mobile some move quite often , while others
  never move at all lending to a degree of
  stability to the residential mosaic.
• Studies have shown that younger households move
  more frequently than older households and
  private renters have been found to be more mobile
  than households in other tenure categories.
• Dane vs. Brenda example of household mobility.

15
What Triggers Stability?

• The longer a household remains in a dwelling, the
  less likely it is to move.
• Cumulative Inertia emotional attachments that
  develop towards the dwelling and immediate
  neighbourhood and the reluctance to break
  increasingly strong and complex social networks
  in favour of the unknown quantity of the pattern
  of daily life elsewhere.
• Movers are more oriented to mobility than are
  persons who have not moved in the past.

16
Household Mobility Age

• Areas of rapid growth tend to have a high
  in-migration of young adults and new housing is
  built to accommodate them.
• Over time, both housing and occupants age.
• These ageing persons are not only less likely to
  move out but are less likely to create a vacancy
  for others to move in. As a result, areas with
  older housing tend to have concentrations of
  older residents.
• In contrast, newer housing tends to have a higher
  number of vacancies and recent movers.

17
Analyzing Obtaining Migration Data

• Census Data rarely includes sufficient
  information about the origins of migrants.
• Questionnaires take a lot of time and are
  expensive.
• Telephone Directories a large number of
  households do not have telephones an incomplete
  source of information.

18
Patterns of In-Migration

• Intra-Urban Movers vs. In-Migrants
• Intra-urban movers move within a given city.
• In-migrants move from other cities, regions and
  countries.

19
In-Migrants High vs. Low Status

• In-migrants can be divided into two categories
  high-status and low status movers.
• Cincinnati is an example of a city that is
  dominated by low-class in-migrants mainly poor
  whites from Appalachia.

20
High Status In-Migrants

• Similar to low-status migrants in that they are
  drawn to the city for economic opportunities.
• Their locational behaviour is quite different.
• They are a highly mobile group of better-educated
  middle-class whose members travel from one city
  to the next in search better jobs and career
  advancement.

21
Where Do They Move?

• They often seek newly established suburban
  developments towards the top of the price range.
• Such areas are attractive to mobile elite given
  that they lack neighbourhood character and
  established social networks that may be deemed
  unfriendly, too friendly, snobbish or common.
• These areas also tend to conform to conventional
  house plans so that it is likely that furnishings
  from the previous residence will fit the new one.

22
Intra-Urban Moves

• Intra-urban moves make up the majority of all
  residential mobility
• These moves shed light on the concept of the
  socio-spatial dialectic
• Socio-Spatial Dialectic the relationship
  between residential mobility and urban ecology.
• Distance Moved most moves have been found to be
  relatively short, although this is often
  dependent on the size of the city considered.
• Variability in distance is often explained best
  by income, race and previous tenure, with
  high-income, white, owner occupier households
  tending to move further.

23
Movement Patterns

• Directional Bias general tendency for migration
  to push outward from inner-city neighbourhoods
  towards the suburbs, but there are always
  exceptions to complicate the issue.
• Often these moves relate to the relative
  socio-economic status of origin and destination
  areas.
• About 80 of moves in the United States take
  place within census tract of similar
  socio-economic characteristics.
• Essentially, relocation within community and
  household spaces usually involve short distances.

24
Threefold Division of the City

• 1) Innermost Zone characterized by high levels
  of mobility, which are absorbed by the arrival of
  low status in-migrants.
• 2) Central Zone area of relative stability
  containing households whose housing needs are
  satisfied. Here, turnover is low simply because
  few housing opportuniteis arise, either through
  vacancies or new construction.
• 3) Outermost Zone high level of mobility are
  supplemented by the arrival of higher-status
  in-migrants.

25
Longer Distance Movements

• While short-distance moves dominate both the
  owner-occupied and public sector, the longer
  distance movements stem from
• 1) Outward flows of owner-occupiers from suburban
  neighbourhoods towards peripheral locations
  located outside the city boundaries.
• 2) Outward flows of households from inner-city
  slum-clearance to suburban public housing estates
• 3) a smaller, inward flow of households moving
  from public housing to older, owner occupier
  tenement property nearer the center of the city
• (Forbes and Robertson, 1978)

26
Determinants of Residential Mobility

• The flows of mobility that shape urban structure
  derive from aggregate patterns of demand for
  accommodation which in turn spring from the
  complex deliberations of individual households.

27
Two Important Aspects of Household Behaviour

• 1) The decision to seek a new residence.
• 2) The search for and selection of a new
  residence.
• In this two-stage approach, attention is focused
  on the personal, residential and environmental
  circumstances that precipitate the decision to
  move and how this decision is acted upon.

28
Reasons for Moving

• Important to make a distinction between voluntary
  and involuntary moves.
• In a study completed in Philadelphia by Rossi
  (1980), involuntary moves were shown to make up a
  significant proportion of the total number of
  moves. Almost 25 of the moves were involuntary,
  and the majority of these were precipitated by
  property demolitions and evictions.
• Interestingly, little is known about the
  locational behaviour of affected households.

29
Forced Moves

• In addition to purely involuntary moves, there is
  a category of forced moves arising from
  marriage, divorce, retirement, ill-health, death
  in the family and long-distance job changes.
• These frequently account for 15 of all moves,
  leaving around 60 as voluntary moves.

30
Reasons for Moving

• Table 12.2 presents the reasons for given moving
  both voluntarily and involuntarily by a large
  sample of recently moved British households,
  revealing a mixture of housing, environmental and
  personal factors.

31
Reasons for Moving

• Housing factors associated with voluntary moves
  are complaints about dwelling and garden space,
  about housing and repair costs, and about style
  obsolescence.
• Environmental factors endure complaints about the
  presence of noxious activities such as factories,
  about noisy children, and about the incidence of
  litter, garbage and pet dogs.
• Personal factors are mostly associated with
  forced moves, but some voluntary moves are
  attributed to personal factors, such as negative
  reaction to new neighbours.

32
Household Relocation

• Figure 12.6 illustrates a general classification
  of the reasons for household relocation. These
  generalizations tend to hold true for sample
  populations in North America, Australia and New
  Zealand.

33
Most Common Reasons for Moving

• The most common and widespread reason for moving
  is related to the households need for dwelling
  space.
• In a study completed by Rossi, more than half of
  the movers cited complaints about too much or too
  little living space
• 44 gave this as their primary reason for moving.
• Interestingly, surveys have established that the
  problem is not so much space per se, but rather
  the relationship between the size and composition
  of a household and its perceived space
  requirements.
• Because both of these factors are closely related
  to the family life-course, it is widely believed
  that life-course changes provide the foundation
  for much of the residential relocation within
  cities.

34
Life Course Residential Mobility

• There are several other frequently cited reasons
  for moving such as
• The desire to own (rather than rent) a home
• The desire for a change in environmental setting
• Changes in household structure and lifestyles
  make it difficult however, to generalize about
  relationships between residential mobility and
  family life course in the way that was possible
  in the 1960s.

35
Life-Course Residential Segregation

• Residential segregation tends to emerge as
  households at similar stages in their life-course
  respond in similar ways to their changing
  domestic and material circumstances.
• As a result, zonal patterns of family status
  develop.
• The sequence of zones runs from a youthful
  inner-city zone through successive zones of older
  and middle-aged family types to a zone of late
  youth/early middle age to the periphery.

36
Status Segregation in Households

• Given that people often prefer to live among
  families similar to their own age and
  composition, as well as economic status,
  developers have reinforced family status
  segregation by building apartment complexes and
  housing estates for specific household types
  designed to keep out non-conforming residents.
• i.e. entire condominiums for single and childless
  couples and university campus residences
• An example of this is Sun City, a satellite
  suburb of Phoenix, Arizona, where no resident
  under the age of 50 is allowed and where the
  entire townscape is dominated by the design needs
  of the elderly who travel quite street on golf
  caddies, going from one social engagement to the
  next.

37
Three Traditional Lifestyle Orientations in Urban
Cultures
Bell, 1968

• 1) Family-Oriented people who are home-centered
  and tend to spend much of their spare time with
  their children. Their housing orientations are
  dominated by their perceptions of their
  childrens needs for play space, a clean, safe
  environment, proximity to child clinics and
  school etc.
• In a study completed by Bell, he found that 83
  of his sample had moved to suburban locations in
  Chicago for the sake of the children.

38

• 2) Careerists have a lifestyles centered on
  career advancement. Since movement is often a
  necessary part of this process, careerists tend
  to be highly mobile and since they are, by
  definition, status-conscious, their housing
  orientations tend to be focused on prestigious
  neighbourhoods appropriate to their jobs, their
  salary and their self image.
• 3) Consumerists are strongly oriented towards
  enjoying the material benefits and amenities of
  modern urban society, and their housing
  preferences are therefore dominated by a desire
  to live in downtown areas, close to clubs,
  theatres, art galleries, restaurants and so on.

39
Criticisms of Bell

• Bells typology can be criticized for its
  middle-class tenor, since it overlooks the
  lifestyle of a large number of households whose
  economic position reduces their housing
  aspirations to the level of survival.
• These households see their homes as havens from
  the outside world, rather than as platforms for
  the enactment of a favoured lifestyle
• Quite simply, households with more modest incomes
  are expected to aspire to housing that meets
  their minimum absolute needs.

40
When Do Households Move?

• The crucial determinant of the decision to move
  is the intensity of the stress that arises as a
  result of this decision.
• The point where tolerable stress becomes
  intolerable stress will be different for each
  household, but once it is reached the household
  must decide between three avenues of behaviour.

41
Three Avenues of Behaviour

• 1) Environmental Improvement small dwellings can
  be enlarged with an extension, cold dwellings can
  have central heating, dilapidated dwellings can
  be revived and redecorated, and over-large
  dwellings can be filled by taking on lodgers.
• Neighbourhood and situational stressors can
  also be countered in various ways through the
  purchase of a car or by petitioning local
  authority to provide better bus services.
• Environmental Degradation and intrusive
  land-users can be tackled through residents
  associations and action committees and
• Undesirable neighbours can be harassed or
  ostracized.
• Note each of these strategies vary in their
  appeal according to household circumstances.
  Owner-occupiers, for example, are much more
  likely to opt for neighbourhood activism than
  renters.

42

• 2) Lowering Aspirations This is am alternative
  means of coming to terms with existing housing
  conditions. It appears to be a common strategy
  given that for every household that moves, there
  are two or three more who report that they would
  like to move if they could. Lowering aspirations
  may involve a change in lifestyle or a
  reformulation of plans. For example, the
  decision to have children may be deferred.
• This may even be a psychological matter of
  dissonance reduction learning to like what
  one has and to become indifferent to what one
  knows one cannot get.
• 3) Residential Relocation this is the course
  chosen by a large minority of households which
  includes the search and selection of a new
  residence.

43
The Search for a New Residence

• Whether the decision to move is voluntary or
  involuntary, all relocating households must go
  through the procedure of searching for suitable
  vacancies and then deciding upon the most
  appropriate new home.
• The chief interest of geographers in this
  procedure lies in the question of whether is
  spatially biased and whether it is biased in
  different ways for different groups of households.

44
Brown and Moores Behavioural Model

• Although information on the way people behave in
  looking for a new home is rather fragmentary, the
  general process is conveniently encompassed
  within the decision-making framework of Brown and
  Moores behavioural model which breaks down
  household behaviour into three stages
• 1) The specification of criteria for evaluating
  
• vacancies.
• 2) The search for dwelling that satisfy these
  criteria.
• 3) The final choice of a new dwelling.

45
Specifying the Desiderata of a New Home

• The first step in acquiring and organizing
  information about a potential new dwelling is to
  define consciously or subconsciously, its
  aspiration region.
• Simply put, this is a conception of the limits of
  acceptability that a household is prepared to
  entertain as an alternative to their current
  accommodation.
• These limits may be defined in terms of the
  desired situational characteristics (the
  attributes of the dwelling itself) and/or the
  desired situational characteristics (the physical
  and social environment of the neighbourhood, its
  proximity to schools, shops etc.)

46
Limits of the Aspiration Region

• The lower limits the aspirations of the region
  are commonly defined by the characteristics of
  the dwelling the household wants to leave.
• The upper limits set by standards to which the
  household can reasonably aspire.
• Often this is constrained by income however
  there are exceptions. For example, some
  households may not want to take on a large
  garden, regardless of house price, while others
  may rule out affordable dwellings in certain
  areas because the neighbourhood does not conform
  with their desired lifestyle.

47
Motivations Associated with Intra-Urban Mobility

• Living space, tenure, dwelling amenities,
  environmental quality and social composition are
  among the most frequently used criteria used by
  households in specifying aspiration region and
  their motivations in deciding to move.
• It is important to note that some of the criteria
  used in evaluating the new residence are largely
  unrelated to the problems encountered in the
  previous residence.
• Interior aspects in the dwelling, the social
  characteristics of the neighbourhood and
  accessibility to various facilities are more
  important in attracting people to a new home than
  in propelling them away.

48
Motivations Associated with Intra-Urban
Mobility, Toronto

• Table 12.3
• Compares the reasons given for moving
  with those given for selecting a new residence by
  a sample of Toronto households.

49
Different Criteria for Different Kinds of Movers

• Households moving to houses were more concerned
  with situational characteristics than those
  moving to apartments.
• Those moving to suburban houses tended to be
  particularly concerned with the layout of the
  dwelling and its potential as an investment.
• Those moving to downtown areas tended to be
  concerned with the aesthetics of the dwelling
  style and the neighbourhood environment.

50
Searching for Vacancies

• General objective is to find the right kind of
  dwelling, at the right price, in the time
  available.
• Some households do not have to search since their
  decision to move has come accidentally after
  discovering an attractive vacancy. These
  windfall moves may account for 25 of all
  intra-urban moves.
• The majority of movers however, base their
  decision on locational terms in that they focus
  their attention on particular neighbourhoods
  which are selected on the basis of their
  perceived situational characteristics and the
  households evaluation of the probability of
  finding vacancies satisfying their site criteria.
• Moreover, it is natural that households will
  further reduce both effort and uncertainty by
  concentrating their search in areas that are best
  known and most accessible to them.

51
Search Space Awareness Space

• Households concentrate their house-hunting
  activities within a limited search space that is
  spatially based by their familiarity with
  different districts.
• In behaviouralist terminology, this search space
  is a subset of a more general awareness space,
  which is usually regarded as a product of
• Peoples activity space or action space (the sum
  of all the places with which people have a
  regular contact as a result of their normal
  activities) and
• Information from secondary source such as radio,
  television, newspapers and even word-of-mouth.

52
Search Spaces

• Awareness Space is spatially biased because of
  the inherent bias in both activity spaces and
  mental maps.
• Different subgroups of households, with
  distinctive activity spaces and mental maps, will
  tend to exhibit an equally distinctive spatial
  bias in their search behaviour.
• Generally speaking, low-income households have a
  limited search space that is centered around the
  previous home, whereas more mobile, higher-income
  households will have a search space which is more
  extensive but focused on the most familiar sector
  of the city between home and the workplace.

53
Where Can You Find Information?

• The most frequently used sources of information
  about vacancies are newspaper advertisements,
  real estate agents, friends and relatives, and
  personal observation of for sale signs,
  although their relative importance and
  effectiveness seems to vary somewhat from one
  city to another.
• Search Barriers barriers that raise the costs of
  searching or gathering information, and barriers
  that explicitly limit the choice of housing units
  or locations available to households.
• Factors related to search costs include lack of
  transportation for searching and lack of
  childcare facilities while searching, as well as
  lack of knowledge about specific information
  channels .
• Factors that limit housing choices include
  financial constraints, discrimination in the
  housing market, and the housing quality standards
  of rent assistance programs.

54
Real Estate Agents

• Real estate agents exert a considerable amount of
  bias in their role as mediators of information.
• Two ways
• 1) each business tends to specialize in limited
  portions of the housing market in terms of both
  price and area.
• 2) while most real estate agents have a fairly
  accurate knowledge of the city-wide housing
  market, they tend to over-recommend dwellings in
  the area in which they are most experienced and
  most familiar with.

55
Time Constraints

• Both search space and search procedures are
  likely to alter as households spend increasing
  amounts of time and money looking for a new home.
• When time starts to run out, the search strategy
  must change to ensure that a home will be found.
  Anxiety produced by a lack of stress may result
  in a modification of the households aspiration
  region, a restriction of its search space, and a
  shift in its use of information sources. These
  modifications may cause people to make poor
  choices.
• On the other hand, the longer one spends looking
  for a home, the greater the households knowledge
  of the housing market.

56
Household Considerations

• Survey data has shown a consistent tendency for
  the majority of households to only consider a few
  vacancies seriously (usually only two or three)
  before selecting a home.
• The behaviouralist framework suggests that
  households are able to reduce the element of
  uncertainty in their decision-making by
  restricting serious consideration to only a few
  vacancies.
• In addition, most households begin with an
  aspiration region that is quite narrowly defined
  (either because of income constraints or
  locational requirements).

57
Choosing a New Home

• Household utility functions used to give a
  subjective rating to each vacancy based on their
  attributes.
• There is little available evidence as to the
  nature of differences in the housing preferences
  of different demographic and socio-economic
  groups.
• Without this information, few inferences can be
  made about the nature of sociospatial outcomes,
  if any, associated with the choice of housing.
• In reality, people are happy to take any
  reasonable vacancy, so long as it does not
  involve a great deal of inconvenience (Lyon and
  Wood, 1977).

58
But What if You Cant Find a Home?

• Those who cannot find homes are forced to change
  their strategy to one of two options
• 1) environmental improvement or
• 2) redefinition of aspirations

59
Residential Constraints

• There are groups however that have little or no
  choice in their housing.
• The most obvious group here is low-income
  households these people may be the real
  working poor, the elderly, the very young, the
  unemployed, or the transient. In any case, their
  numbers are large. (Bourne, 1981)
• Other subgroups whose residential choice is
  heavily constrained include households that have
  special needs (e.g. large families, single parent
  families, non-married couples, former inmates of
  institutions and problem families), households
  that cannot relocate because of personal
  handicaps, family situations or medical needs
  and households that are unwilling to move because
  of the psychological stress of moving from
  familiar environments.

60
Residential Mobility Neighbourhood Change

• like individuals make like choices (Rees, 1970)
  often generating macro-scale generalizations
  about processes of mobility and neighbourhood
  change.
• Zonal patterning of socioeconomic status is often
  associated with the sequence of
  invasion-succession-dominance that was put forth
  by Burgess (1924) in his model of ecological
  change.
• This model is based on the pressure of low-status
  in-migrants arriving in inner-city areas. As
  this pressure increases, some families penetrate
  the surrounding neighbourhoods, thus initiating a
  chain reaction whereby residents of each
  successively higher-status zone are forced to
  move further out from the center in order to
  counter the lowering of neighbourhood status.

61
Invasion-Succession-Dominance Concept

• The concept of invasion-succession-dominance
  provides a useful framework for the observed
  sequence of neighbourhood change in cities where
  rapid urban growth is fuelled by large-scale
  in-migration of low-status families.
• The classic example of this was Chicago in the
  1920s and 1930s.
• Nevertheless, this model is of limited relevance
  to most modern citied, since its driving force
  the in-flow of low-status in-migrants is of
  diminishing importance the bulk of in-migrants
  is now accounted for by middle-income families
  moving from a suburb in one city to a similar
  suburb in another.

62
High-Status Movement, Filtering Vacancy Chains

• An alternative view to neighbourhood change and
  residential mobility stems from Homer Hoyts
  (1939) sectoral model of urban growth and
  economic structure. It was undertaken to
  classify neighbourhood types according to their
  mortgage lending risk.
• He found the key in residential structure to be
  the behaviour of high-status households.
• He stated that with urban growth, high-status
  areas expand axially along natural routeways, in
  response to the desire among the well-off to
  combine accessibility with suburban living.
• It is reinforced by a tendancy among community
  leaders to favour non-industrial waterside sites
  and higher ground and for the rest of the
  higher-income groups to seek the social cachet of
  living in the same neighbourhood as these
  prominenti.

63
High-Status Movement, Filtering Vacancy Chains

• Further sectoral development occurs when
  dissatisfaction with their existing housing
  prompts a move outwards to new housing in order
  to maintain standards of exclusivity. In the
  wake of this continual outward movement of
  high-status households, the housing they vacate
  is occupied by middle-status households whose own
  housing is in turn occupied by lower-status
  households a process termed filtering
• The vacancies created by the lowest-status groups
  are either demolished or occupied by low-status
  in-migrants.

64
Mechanisms of Neighbourhood Change

• The mechanism of neighbourhood change is the
  chain of moves initiated by the construction of
  new dwellings for the wealthy, resulting in their
  older properties filtering down the social scale
  while individual households filter up the housing
  scale.
• In order for the filtering process to operate
  there has to be more new construction than that
  required simply to replace the deteriorating
  housing of the elite.

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What Encourages the Wealthy to Move?

• For the rich, there are several factors which may
  trigger a desire for new housing. For example,
  advances in kitchen technology and heating
  systems and the innovation of new luxury features
  such as swimming pools and saunas may cause
  functional obsolescence.
• Changes in design trends may also cause
  obsolescence style obsolescence in the eyes
  of those who can afford to be sensitive to
  architectural fads and fashions.
• Driven to new housing by one or more of these
  factors, the wealthy will create a significant
  number of vacancies which the next richest group
  will be impelled to fill through a desire for a
  greater quantity and/or quality of housing.
• These desires can also be seen as a result of the
  influence of changing housing needs associated
  with the family life-cycle.

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Obstacles to Filtering

• Vacancy chains may start in ways other than the
  construction of new housing.
• Other examples include the conversion of
  non-residential property to residential uses,
  through the death of a household, through the
  move of an existing household to share
  accommodation with another, and through
  emigration outside the city.
• Similarly, they may be ended in several ways
  other than the demolition of the worst dwellings
  or their occupation by poor in-migrants.
• Vacancy chains will also end if the household
  that moves into the dwelling is a new one and
  so leaves no vacancy behind for others to fill.
  This may arise through the marriage of a couple
  who had both previously been living with friends
  or parents, through divorced people setting up
  separate homes, or through the splitting of an
  existing household, with for example, a son or
  daughter moving out to their own flat.

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Filtering

• Grigsby (1963) argues that filtering only occurs
  when value declines more rapidly than quality so
  that families can obtain either higher quality
  and more space at the same price or the same
  quality and space at a lower price than
  formerly.
• Therefore, it can be seen as a means of
  facilitating a general improvement of housing
  conditions as new homes filter down the social
  scale.
• Results in an eventual improvement in the housing
  conditions of the poor through the natural
  process of filtering, without recourse to public
  intervention in the housing market.
• Up to the 1930s, Britain relied almost entirely
  on the filtering process to improve the housing
  conditions of the working classes, while it still
  remains the basis of US housing strategy.

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Vacancy Chains

• Many of the once-fashionable rich quarters of the
  rich can be seen to be occupied by distinctly
  less prosperous families, students, single-person
  households and the aged.
• Appears to be a continual upward filtering of
  households does arise from the construction of
  few homes for the wealthy.
• In terms of vacant housing opportunities,
  benefits to poor families are not in proportion
  to their numbers, suggesting that filtering is
  unlikely to be an important agent of
  neighbourhood change in poor areas.
• The filtering mechanism rarely penetrates the
  lower spectrum of the housing market to any great
  extent.

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Inhibitions to the Process of Filtering

• 1) failure of high income housing to keep pace
  with the overall rate if new household formation
  and in-migration.
• 2) the structure of income distribution which,
  since higher-income groups constitute a
  relatively small class, means that the houses
  they vacate in preference for new homes are
  demanded by a much larger group, thus maintaining
  high prices and suppressing the filtering
  process.
• 3) the inertia and non-economic behavior of some
  households and the persistence of elite
  neighbourhoods in symbolically prestigous
  inner-city locations.
• 4) the existence of other processes of
  neighbourhood change related to
  invasion/succession, household life-courses,
  gentrification which are unrelated to the
  construction of new, high-income housing.

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Chapter Summary

• Movers of residence within cities are typically
  over short distances with a tendency to move
  outwards towards suburban areas.
• People move for a complex mixture of voluntary
  and involuntary reasons and the choice of new
  residence depends upon channels of information
  about vacancies and the housing opportunities at
  the time of the move.
• Residential mobility has profound effects on
  urban social geography.
• While Burgesss concentric ring model suggests
  that pressure from new migrants is the main
  push for out-migration, Hoyts sectoral model
  suggest that the pull or filtering effect of
  properties vacated by the more affluent is the
  primary mechanism at work. There is some
  evidence for filtering, but this is only a
  partial explanation for neighbourhood change.

71

• Thank You,
• Brenda, Dane Lisa