Abstract
The distribution pattern of housing in any urban area will be extremely diverse and heterogeneous. The shape of this pattern depends on intrinsic properties of the housing units themselves as well as on accessibility, environmental quality and the capacity and quality of previously constructed housing stock. How do households make their choices and distribute themselves among such diverse housing areas? The aim of this investigation is to put the factors that could define the choice structure of households by focusing on two different-size cities in Turkey: the Istanbul Metropolitan Area (IMA), where the housing choice is expected to dependent upon economic behavior of households, and Bandırma (BND), a medium-size city, where the housing market is relatively weaker and the choice structure is expected to dependent upon the limited opportunities of supply. The investigation results show that households’ socio-economic characteristics dominate the choice structure in the IMA parallel to the expectation. Housing properties have a more notable impact on the choice structure in BND that acknowledged the relative limitation of the housing market.
Highlights
Households’ residential choice is one of the most striking research areas in the social sciences
This study aims to analyze the households’ residential choice structure by focusing on two different-size cities from Turkey: the Istanbul Metropolitan Area (IMA) and Bandırma (BND)
Estimation results show that the socio-economic structure of households has the highest impact on the housing choice structure in the metropolitan area
Summary
Households’ residential choice is one of the most striking research areas in the social sciences. The residential choice of households are affected by several factors: the market structure by itself; external factors such as political circumstances, economic policies, social networks and relations; the housing and land supply policies of both central and local governments; and internal factors such as households’ well-being and expectations. All of those influence economic behavior of households that consequences of the behavior can be observed in housing prices, quantities exchanged and location and choice of space. The equilibrium location is determined in Muth’s model by the land-price and commuting-cost functions, where the marginal decrease in expenditures on housing is equal to the marginal increase in commuting costs for small changes in distance (Muth 1969)
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