Residential Location Choice Research Articles

Non-linear and weakly monotonic relationship between school quality and house prices

This study provides evidence for a non-linear and weakly monotonic relationship between school quality and house prices. Using Fremont, California, as the study area, the regression analysis shows that homeowners are unwilling to pay a premium for an increase in school quality from low to medium quality. However, they are willing to pay a) a large premium when all schools are top-quality schools and b) a premium for access to nationally-renowned schools, which is in addition to the premium for top-quality schools. These findings have important land use policy significance because they provide new insights into the homeowner’s residential location choice and highlight the need to consider school quality in a jurisdiction’s land use and zoning decisions.

Examining the Dynamics of Residential Location Choice in Metropolitan Areas Using an Analytical Hierarchy Process

Abstract In recent years, significant changes have occurred in land usage and residential buildings due to population growth and urbanization. The residential location choice is a key component of ...

Rental Location Choice Characteristics and Tendencies of Migrants in Guangzhou, China

The inner-urban residential location choice is a topic of continuing interest in urban geography. However, not much research has been done on migrants’ rental location choices. Based on data from a questionnaire completed by 276 migrant renters in Guangzhou, this paper analyzes the demographics and social class characteristics of migrants, and the condition and location of housing preferred by this population. The results show that the migrants in Guangzhou mainly rent in the Center Business District (CBD) area (Tianhe District) and Huangpu, Panyu and Haizhu districts. The main reason for this choice of location choices is the houses’ convenience to their workplaces. A second reason is that nearby subways make travel convenient, for consumption and daily life, for children to go to school, and for access to large shopping centers/malls.

The Neighborhood Effect on Keeping Non-Commuting Journeys within Compact and Sprawled Districts

The neighborhood effect on keeping non-commuting trips inside neighborhoods has not yet been investigated in developing countries. The modeling of non-commuting trips inside neighborhoods helps understand how to avoid unnecessary journeys by car into different parts of the city. This paper, therefore, attempts to clarify (1) the similarities and differences in the socioeconomic characteristics and the perceptions of people in sprawled and compact neighborhoods, (2) correlations between, on the one hand, the choice of destinations of non-commuting trips for shopping and entertainment activities and, on the other, the socioeconomic features, travel behavior, and perceptions of residents in the two large Pakistani cities of Lahore and Rawalpindi, (3) the similarities and differences in the determinants of non-commuting destinations inside neighborhoods in compact and sprawled districts. The paper develops four Binary Logistic (BL) regression models, with two models for each type of neighborhood. The findings show that trips to shopping areas inside compact districts are correlated with a sense of belonging to the neighborhood, frequency of public transport use, residential location, and mode choice of non-commuting trips to destinations both inside and outside the neighborhood. On the other hand, the number of non-commuting trips, mode choice for non-commuting trips outside the neighborhood, frequency of public transport use, the attractiveness of shops, and monthly income (please see the Note) are significant determinants for trips to the shopping area in sprawled districts. Age, gender, possession of a driver’s license, income, number of non-commuting trips, mode choice for non-commuting trips outside of the neighborhood, car ownership, and attractiveness of shops in a neighborhood are correlated with trips to entertainment locations inside the neighborhood in compact districts. Finally, the attractiveness of shops, quality of social and recreational facilities, a sense of belonging to a neighborhood, choice of residential location, gender, age, possession of a driver’s license, number of cars in the household, and income are determinants of trips to entertainment locations in sprawled districts. A chi-square test confirms the differences across gender, daily activity, monthly income, frequency of public transport use, residential location choice, and the quality of social and recreational facilities for sprawled and compact districts in Pakistan.

Dynamic Residential Location Choice Model for the Prediction of Population Movement after a Catastrophic Disaster

Dynamic Residential Location Choice Model for the Prediction of Population Movement after a Catastrophic Disaster

Noisy Neighborhood but Nice House? Pollution and the Choice of Residential Location and Housing Quality

Noisy Neighborhood but Nice House? Pollution and the Choice of Residential Location and Housing Quality

Access to transportation, residential segregation, and economic opportunity

AbstractThe Housing Choice Voucher Program assists low‐income families to afford decent housing and provide them with better economic opportunities. There is growing evidence that public transportation plays an important role in shaping the residential location choices of low‐income households. However, transportation has not been a major focus of the research related to housing voucher programs. We develop a general equilibrium model of a city with multiple districts, decentralized employment, multiple commuting modes, and locally financed education. We compare housing vouchers with transportation vouchers with respect to poverty deconcentration, educational quality in each district, unskilled employment in the suburbs, and welfare.

Residential location choice and its effects on travel satisfaction in a context of short-term transnational relocation

Temporary opportunities for studying and working abroad have been growing globally and intensifying the movement of highly skilled temporary populations. To attract this group, cities need to address their residential and mobility needs. This study focuses on factors influencing residential and travel satisfaction of transnational temporary residents, highlighting the occurrence of residential self-selection, its impacts on residential and travel choices and on derived levels of satisfaction. We have estimated a Bayesian Structural Equations Model and found that lower levels of residential satisfaction (residential dissonance) are associated with lower rents, living farther away from the place of study or work, and having higher transport expenditures. In contrast, higher levels of residential satisfaction (residential consonance) are related to individuals’ stronger preferences for active modes, lower levels of public transport use, and reduced transport monthly expenditures, which suggest shorter commuting distances. These findings reveal the tradeoffs involving residential location, monthly rent, and transport expenditures, highlighting that providing good public transport connections can reduce the burden of commuting distances. Our results indicate that better transport supply and land-use balance near the residence can improve both residential and travel satisfaction.

Monocentric versus polycentric urban structure: Case study in Hong Kong

Activity resource allocation or dispersion (e.g., employment, education), transport network improvement, and property development, affect the urban community in different ways. To illuminate their intricate relations, we study the perspectives of three groups of stakeholders: i) households with heterogeneous members seeking a common residence to optimize their proximity to activity resources; ii) transport planners aiming to relieve traffic congestion; and iii) property developers aiming to maximize their housing profit through the bid-rent process. To assess the impacts of different resource allocation patterns (centralized versus dispersed), a household bid-rent and residential location choice model with heterogeneous compositions is developed, including household members’ activity destination choices and travel choices under stochastic user equilibrium. We apply this model to a new redevelopment region in Kowloon, Hong Kong. The results show that centralized resource allocation increases the producer surplus but reduces the household disposable income. Compared with dispersion in school resource allocation or transport improvement, job reallocation is the most efficient in alleviating traffic congestion as employments are dispersed into multiple centers, and inter-zonal commute trips are converted into intra-zonal trips. We also investigate the outcomes as the urban structure varies from monocentric, dual-core into multiple self-contained communities (i.e. polycentric). The results show that any accessibility gain due to a change in the urban form will be capitalized by developers into higher housing prices in the new central business district (CBD) regions, hence shrinking the consumer surplus and disposable income. Therefore, it is unlikely to find an urban form that will achieve win–win–win situations for all three stakeholder groups in the case study example.

Household structure and urban opportunities: Evaluating differences in the accessibility to jobs, education and leisure in São Paulo

Household structure has been recognized as an important element of residential location choice. The aim of this work is to understand how the spatial configuration resulting from these location choices could cause differentials in terms of urban life and opportunities. To do so, a weighted gravitational accessibility index is applied to the São Paulo Metropolitan Area to investigate the differences among household structures to distinct types of accessibility (jobs, education and leisure). The results point to a high disparity between accessibility levels, especially in the accessibility to jobs. The household size plays an important role, with lower accessibility levels associated with more members in the household. The study shows that the household composition also has impacts on accessibility and that higher deprivation levels affect single-parent households.

Public Transport Use and Satisfaction by International Students and Researchers

Travel behavior adaptations resulting from international temporary relocation is understudied, despite their increasing relevance. The scarce published literature on the subject overlooks the local contexts and ignores aspects related to the adaptation processes and motivations. This study aims to partially fill this gap by addressing the travel behavior adaptation of international students and researchers, focusing on public transport (PT) frequency of use and satisfaction. To investigate this, a Bayesian Structural Equation Model was estimated using data collected from a tailor-made online survey answered by temporary international exchange students and researchers. The model confirms that (i) travel behavior habit in the city of origin influences the residential location choice in the host city; (ii) the higher the frequency of PT use in the city of origin, the higher the PT use in the host city; (iii) the residential location in the host city affects individuals’ frequency of PT use and satisfaction; (iv) perceiving technology as helpful to move around leads to perceiving the PT system as easier to use at the beginning of the stay; (v) perceiving the PT as easier to use, leads to a higher frequency of its use and a higher level of satisfaction with the PT system.

Potential Impacts of Autonomous Vehicles on Urban Sprawl: A Comparison of Chinese and US Car-Oriented Adults

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) may significantly impact people’s choice of residential locations and spatial structures. The impact may vary across different countries, but few studies have focused on it. This study drew on China and the United States (US) as two cases to study car drivers’ knowledge of AVs and willingness to move farther if AVs were available by estimating ordered logistic regression models. The results showed that 42.3% of Chinese and 29.8% of US respondents were likely to consider moving farther away from the nearest city or the destination for the most frequent trip if they had an AV. The Chinese sample had less knowledge of AVs than the US sample, but they were more likely to consider a move. AVs may lead to a new round of urban sprawl, but the challenge may be greater for China. We captured the socio-economic and transport factors that affected this result.

Examining the long term impacts of COVID-19 using an integrated transport and land-use modelling system

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the long-term impacts of COVID-19 on transport and land-use systems through understanding changes in households’ long-term choices, such as residential location choice, travel tool ownership and type choice. For that, it first develops two possible scenarios, which are, (i) without COVID-19 pandemic, (ii) with COVID-19 pandemic. Specific behavioural attributes of households associated with each scenario are modelled and simulated up to the year 2030 within an integrated transport, land-use and energy (iTLE) model. iTLE is an agent-based microsimulation model developed for Nova Scotia, Canada. Results show that, if COVID-19 persists, most people who do not own a car will continue restraining themselves from purchasing one up to the year 2027. Most households having heads aged between 30 and 75 years and a yearly income above $100,000 will purchase new vehicles in year 2022, making the vehicle purchase rate doubled in the province. In terms of vehicle type choice decision, the use of SUVs will increase by 25% and 27% by 2025 and 2030, respectively, compared to year 2020. The pandemic will cause a 0%–74% increase in vehicle ownership in suburban areas by 2030. Additionally, the ability to ‘work from home’ and online school facilities may influence people to live further away from downtown. The results of this study will offer transport and land-use planners insights into how households’ long-term decision making may evolve in the future due to the COVID-19 crisis and help develop policies to continue focusing on the sustainability goals for communities.

Determinants of household residential location choice among informal settlers in Port Harcourt

Informal settlements, sometimes called slums, are sites of significant environmental risk in developing cities. Despite its environmental challenges, residents prefer to live in informal settlements rather than planned allocated plots. This paper assesses the determinants of households’ residential location decision in an informal settlement in Port Harcourt in order to gain understanding on what makes individuals consider a particular location in an informal settlement. The study employs a case study approach and uses both indepth face-to-face interviews and structured questionnaires on waterfront households using Cluster sampling to group the settlements into seven (7) zones based on their location in order to capture information on residential location choice decisions of respondents in the informal settlements. In each settlement, we interviewed two households, thereafter questionnaires were administered on 55 respondents’ household by trained graduate students who worked as enumerators. In all a total of 14 interviews were conducted and 385 questionnaires administered. Out of the 385 questionnaires administered, 315 were completed and returned. The results of the survey corroborated by an indebth interview revealed that the growing informality are not limited to income level, but household uses social networks (living close to family or friends), livelihood opportunities, proximity to work, and commuting cost to find accommodation, land for building and support for everyday life in an informal settlement.

How Are Urban Green Spaces and Residential Development Related? A Synopsis of Multi-Perspective Analyses for Leipzig, Germany

The relationship between urban green spaces (UGS) and residential development is complex: UGS have positive and negative immediate impacts on residents’ well-being, residential location choice, housing, and land markets. Property owners and real estate agents might consider how prospective clients perceive UGS and act accordingly, while urban planners influence UGS location and management as well as aim at steering the built environment. Typically, studies focus on one of these perspectives at a time. Here, we provide a synopsis of results from studies, taking different perspectives for a single case study: Leipzig, Germany. We summarise and discuss the findings of eight studies on UGS and residential development. In detail, these studies focus on spatial pattern analysis, hedonic pricing analysis, mixed-methods studies on experts’ perspectives, surveys, and choice experiments exploring residents’ perceptions of UGS. We reflect on the feasibility of deriving a synthesis out of these independent studies and to what extent context matters. We conclude that both triangulating of data and methods, as well as long-term and context-sensitive studies are needed to explain the interlinkages between UGS and residential development and their context dependency.

Re-visiting residential self-selection and dissonance: Does intra-household decision-making change the results?

• Diverging travel attitudes between partners limit residential self-selection. • Women’s travel attitudes substantially influence neighborhood selection. • Neighborhood characteristics affect female partners more in their mode choice. • More dissonant households live in suburban than in urban core areas. A considerable amount of literature has discussed the relevance of travel attitudes for location choices and travel behavior. Numerous studies have reported evidence that individuals choose neighborhoods that allow them to travel with their preferred transport mode, a process referred to as residential self-selection. Most studies, however, assume homogeneous attitudes and preferences among household members and ignore negotiation processes between partners that influence travel and location choices. The goal of this study is to investigate the extent to which heterogeneity in attitudes between partners affect residential self-selection and residential dissonance. This study uses data from a travel survey conducted in the agglomeration area of Vienna (Austria), factor analyses and multinomial logit models to explore residential location and mode choices. Descriptive analysis reveals that depending on the neighborhood type travel attitudes have different effects on mode choice. Heterogeneity in travel attitudes between partners partly explains limited evidence of residential self-selection and dissonance. In general, effects of residential dissonance on location choice are most relevant if both partners are dissonant. Surprisingly, only women’s travel attitudes substantially influence neighborhood selection which may be explained by the fact that female partners are also more affected by neighborhood characteristics in their travel behavior than their male partners. One third of respondents does not live in neighborhoods that match their travel attitudes. More dissonant households live in suburban areas than in the urban core indicating potential pressures on the housing market. Policy implications of these results emphasize the relevance of gender and highlight the challenge of providing affordable housing with good mobility services.

Renters vs owners: The impact of accessibility on residential location choice. Evidence from Lyon urban area, France (1999–2013)

Urban areas face important challenges linked to contradictory trends of concentration, urban sprawl and segregation. More and more people choose to buy a residence in the suburbs taking advantage of the accessibility increase. At the same time, young households choose to rent in central areas. In this paper, distinguishing between renters and owners, we investigate the evolution of the households’ location choice determinants over time with a special focus on accessibility to employment. Our case study is the Lyon urban area. We rely on discrete choice models using the disaggregated census data of the location choices of households from 1999, 2008 and 2013 and we calculate elasticities. The results confirm our initial intuition. Owners become less sensitive to accessibility to employment over time whereas it is the opposite for renters. Our results suggest the importance of incorporating these temporal evolutions into models for a better land-use transport integration and policy.

The Role of Smart Growth in Residential Location Choice: Heterogeneity of Location Preferences in the Chicago Region

We investigate the role of smart growth in household location choice in the Chicago region, using a discrete choice analysis. In the midst of continued region-wide suburbanization, households tend to move to neighborhoods with rich consumption amenities and high transit access. However, this study does not find evidence that the neighborhood’s physical compactness is a significant location factor. Location preference for compact, mixed-use, and transit-oriented neighborhoods is significantly affected by the life cycle stage and income level, but less influenced by generation and age. Millennial households show strong preference for amenities and transit access only before they marry and have children.

Exploring the residential segregation of Chinese languages and language groups of the Indian subcontinent in Sydney

AbstractMost studies of the spatial integration of immigrant groups and their descendants in multicultural cities use broad categories only, such as ethnic/racial identity and birthplace/ancestry, implicitly assuming that such groups are homogeneous. Some are not. Instead, they are subdivided according to further cultural characteristics such as language and religion, which may be central to group identity and residential location choices. Using data from the 2016 Australian census, we examine the spatial distribution of 17 language groups with 1,000 or more persons in Sydney—five Chinese languages and 12 from the Indian subcontinent—at five spatial scales: major regions, regions, districts, suburbs, and neighbourhoods. We find consistent evidence of significant levels of segregation among those speaking the 17 languages at the neighbourhood level, but a lack of differentiation among other scales in Sydney.

Residential Location Choice in Istanbul, Tehran, and Cairo: The Importance of Commuting to Work

The determinants of residential location choice have not been investigated in many developing countries. This paper examines this topic, including the influence of urban travels on house location decision-making in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Based on 8284 face-to-face interviews in Istanbul, Tehran, and Cairo, the dummy variable of residential location choice, including two categories of mobility reasons and other factors, was modeled by binary probit regression modeling. By means of receiver-operating characteristic analysis, the cutoff value of commuting distance and the time passed from the last relocation was estimated. Finally, the significant difference between the value of these two variables for people with different house location reasons were tested by Mann–Whitney U-test. The results show that the eight variables of shopping-entertainment mode choice in faraway places, frequency of public transit trips, neighborhood attractiveness perception, age, number of driving licenses in household, commuting distance, number of accessed facilities, and the (walkable) accessibility of facilities influence the residential self-selections. People who chose their current home based on mobility commute a daily mean distance of 8596 m and relocated less than 15.5 years ago, while those who chose their home based on other reasons, such as socioeconomics or personal reasons, commute longer and moved to a new house more than 15.5 years ago. This shows how the attitudes of people about residential location have changed in the MENA region, but there are still contextual differences to high-income countries.