Understanding Residential Mobility

Abstract

Residential relocation or mobility is a critical component of land use dynamics. Models of land use dynamics need to consider residential relocation or mobility behavior of households to be able to predict population demographics land use patterns that are critical to activity and travel demand forecasting. Unfortunately, little is known about residential relocation behavior at the disaggregate level, in terms of both the reasons for relocation and the duration of stay at a given residential location. This paper aims to fill this gap in knowledge by formulating and estimating a joint model of the reason for residential relocation and the duration of stay at a location. The model is estimated on a data set derived from a survey conducted in Zurich, Switzerland, that captures information about residential moves over a 20-year period spanning 1985 to 2004. The paper provides elasticity estimates demonstrating how the model can be applied to evaluate impacts of changes in exogenous factors on residential mobility events.