Residential Location Choice Research Articles

Walking in a New Inner-city Area: Evidence from a Berlin Case Study ( poster )

European cities recently experience new growth. In terms of daily mobility this is good news for walking: the compact and mixed land use structures of inner-city areas promote the use of non-motorized transport modes. To satisfy the increasing demand of housing urban redevelopment projects emerge. While positive effects of compact and mixed land use structures on walking have been identified for ‘traditional’ neighborhoods, little knowledge exists about daily mobility in new inner-city areas. Therefore, this study analyzes travel behavior of residents who have recently moved to a new inner-city area. Taking the example of Berlin, a quantitative survey was conducted in a new inner-city area. The research area is mainly residential and accommodates different types of apartment buildings and terraced housing with garden. To characterize the residents and their daily mobility descriptive analysis were carried out in comparison with the population of the inner and outer city of Berlin. Moreover, a cluster analysis was conducted to identify different groups of travel behavior. This new inner-city area mainly attracts couples and families with high incomes. Car ownership is well above the average of Berlin; however, the residents make about one third of all trips by walking which is comparable to the population of the Berlin inner city. The cluster analysis reveals that even in a homogenous area in terms of population structure and the built environment residents differ widely with regard to daily mobility. Four travel behavior groups have been identified: residents with high shares of walking, cycling, driving, and public transport. In the context of residential location choice, they had different requirements. Residents with high shares of walking, for example, wanted to live in a child-friendly neighborhood with green space, preferably in a house with a garden. Overall, the study suggests that new inner-city areas provide good opportunities for active travel. Even households with high car ownership tend to walk for different trip purposes. Nonetheless, there are differences in travel behavior as well as in the motives for residential location choice. This emphasizes the need for group specific urban planning measures to enhance walking in new inner-city areas.

First-best dynamic assignment of commuters with endogenous heterogeneities in a corridor network

We study a parsimonious theory that synthesizes short-term traffic demand management (TDM) policies with long-term endogenous heterogeneities of demand. In a corridor network with multiple discrete bottlenecks, we study a model of system optimal assignment that integrates the short-term problem (departure time choice with tolling) and the long-term problem (job and residential location choice). For the short-term departure-time-choice equilibrium, under mild assumptions on schedule delay function, we derive analytical solutions under a first-best TDM scheme. Investigating properties of long-term equilibria, we found that the overall equilibrium pattern exhibits remarkable spatio-temporal sorting properties. It is further shown that a lack of integration of the short- and the long-term policy results in excessive investments for long-term road construction.

Optimal toll of new highway in the equilibrium framework of heterogeneous households' residential location choice

Because of limited budget and the consideration of transportation demand management, most of the new highways will be tolled after putting them into use. Meanwhile, lots of people belonging to different sectors of society flocked to city to search for jobs and better living each year. Therefore, for the government departments, one of most important issues is to determine the optimal toll of new highway under the background of ever-increasing households. This paper proposes an optimal toll model in the equilibrium framework of heterogeneous households' residential location choice. It is formulated as a bi-level program. In the upper-level subprogram, government departments determine an optimal toll of new highway in order to minimize urban system’s total travel time. However, the construction and toll charge of the new highway will totally change urban traffic condition, and thus under the assumption of a complete market economy it will further affect the new households' location and commute behavior. Here, new households' location choice behavior has been modeled based on reference-dependent theory and household balance model. And their route choice behavior has been formulated as the multi-class multi-criteria stochastic user equilibrium model. This combined residential location choice and traffic assignment problem has been formulated by fixed point theory as the lower-level program. Finally, a genetic algorithm based solution approach is used to solve this optimization problem. In addition, a set of numerical experiments has been conducted to demonstrate the properties of this problem and the performance of our proposed model. And some interesting conclusions have been given.

Endogenous treatment of residential location choices in transport and land use models: Introducing the MetroScan framework

Within a random utility maximisation modelling framework, the paper develops a residential location choice model as part of an integrated transport and land use modelling system, called MetroScan – a quick scanning tool to evaluate transport and land use initiatives, including benefit-cost analysis and economic impact analysis. We describe how the developed model is integrated, as an empirically calibrated module, into the behaviourally richer transport and land use modelling system of MetroScan for practical application. A full application of MetroScan modelling system to Sydney West Metro link recently proposed by the New South Wales government is presented as a case study. The results demonstrate how the residential location choice model works with other inter-connected models, such as work and non-work location choices, dwelling tenure and dwelling type, and vehicle fleet size choice embedded in the modelling system, in simulating the impact of transport and housing development on household choices of residential location.

Housing location choices of the poor: does access to jobs matter?

This research investigates whether access to jobs affects poor households’ residential location choices using data from individual households in the Chicago Metropolitan Area. Our results, based on discrete choice models, show that the effects of job accessibility on household location choices are contingent upon households’ automobile ownership and employment status. Places with higher job accessibility by public transit mode are more likely to attract poor households that do not own cars but have at least one employed worker or one labour force participant, while job accessibility by automobile travel mode has no positive effect on the location choices of poor households who own automobiles. The results stress the importance of job accessibility for those poor households with limited transportation mobility but strong needs for access to jobs.

Modelling mode switch associated with the change of residential location

This paper presents the findings of a random parameters logit model (RPL) of mode switching behaviour as a longer-term decision using retrospective survey data. This study focuses on whether or not individuals switch their commute modes following residential relocation. The study accommodates the panel effects of the repeated mode switching decisions of individuals during their life-time and captures unobserved heterogeneity within the RPL modelling framework. This study extensively examines the effects of past travel behaviour, changes in household state due to life-cycle events, attitude, and accessibility measures. Factor analysis is performed to generate the following six attitudinal factors: pro-high density, pro-environment, travel satisfaction, travel stress, pro-car, and pro-active transportation. The model results suggest that past travel experiences significantly influence the mode switch decisions. Individuals are found to show preference in persisting with their past mode. In the case of change in household state, individuals are more likely to switch mode if household size increases. Among the attitudinal variables, pro-high density, pro-active transportation, and travel stress are found to influence mode switch. Individuals living closer to transit stops show preference to change mode; in contrast, individuals living farther from work locations reveal a lower likelihood to change mode. The model results reveal that heterogeneity exists among the individuals. For example, individuals with pro-high density attitude show significant variation during mode switching decisions. This study provides important behavioural insights, which will assist transportation planning and policy making that focuses to influence longer-term shifts in travel behaviour and choice of residential location.

Does competition in the housing market cause transport poverty? Interrelations of residential location choice and mobility

IntroductionThis contribution examines the impact of the housing market on daily mobility and is based on the assumption that, in a supply-dominated housing market, as availability and affordability decline, many people must compromise, particularly on accessibility-related decision criteria when searching for a residential location. This applies even more to households with low financial flexibility, which can neither bear the high cost of housing in accessible inner-city neighborhoods nor afford the higher cost of mobility in less well-connected suburban areas.MethodsThese interrelations are examined in a current study in more detail by means of problem-centered qualitative interviews highlighting the situation of low-income households, using the Munich Metropolitan Region as an example. This paper gives an overview of interrelations and presents selected results of the study.ResultsLow-income households do not change their residential location unless it is really necessary. If they do move, they are nearly unable to optimize their location in order to have better access to destinations. Whereas they are able to change some destinations, there are also some immutable destinations, which lead to an increase in effort spent on transport.ConclusionsAll in all the insights presented confirm the suggested assumptions. They show the very limited residential choices low-income households have, but leave room for further evaluations on possible implications.

Life history-oriented residential location choice model: A stress-based two-tier panel modeling approach

This paper presents a life history-oriented modeling framework to investigate residential location decisions as a two-tier process of location search and location choice. In the first tier, a stress-based location search model is developed by assuming that households search for a new location due to continual stress at different life-domains. The search model adopts a fuzzy logic-based modeling method that mimics the inter-dependencies between push and pull factors. In the second tier, a location choice model is developed that accommodates how location decisions interact with life-cycle events at different life-domains. The model utilizes a latent segmentation-based logit modeling technique to address the panel effect of the households’ housing career. The model results suggest that households in general show preference for larger lots, and locations closer to work place, transit stop, and health service. Location choice is found to be significantly influenced by the life-cycle events as well as the lead and lagged effects. For example, the birth of a child magnifies the need of larger lots. The life-history effects, however vary across two segments. Suburbanite households in segment two prefer larger lots following a job change; whereas, urbanite households in segment one show a negative relationship. The adjustment period for a job change is longer than that of addition of a new job. A longer adjustment time is also found in the case of the first time vehicle purchase than acquisition of a vehicle. Presence of children influences suburbanite households to reside closer to work place. Urbanite households with children prefer to live closer to school.

How family networks drive residential location choices: Evidence from a stated preference field experiment in Bogotá, Colombia

This research quantifies the relative importance of proximity to extended family networks in the stated residential location choices of Bogotá‘s low-to-middle-income residents by applying a conditional logistic regression model and using data from an original choice experiment. I find that the surveyed individuals prefer living near their extended family and, on average, prioritise it more than accessibility to the central business district. Those who have relied on help from extended family members in a personal or economic crisis situation have a stronger preference for living near extended family compared with those who have not, as do those who are able to rely on extended family ties for childcare assistance.

Understanding residential location choices: an application of the UrbanSim residential location model on Suwon, Korea

ABSTRACTThe residential location choice model is an effective tool to analyze the actual household demand for housing and better living environments, and many researchers have developed various residential location choice models. In this study, a residential location choice model using a discrete choice modelling framework within UrbanSim is applied to Suwon, Korea with the following aims: (1) to investigate factors affecting residential location choice in Suwon, (2) to forecast changes in household residential locations, and (3) to derive policy implications for the local housing market. An extensive database of parcels, households, jobs, land prices, and transportation networks is geocoded on the basis of grid cells that measure 150 × 150 metres. The estimation results show that access to employment opportunities, the ratio of housing cost to income, mixed land use, and the year that housing was built are important factors in determining household residential locations in Suwon. In addition, different age and income groups have different residential location preferences. UrbanSim, a highly disaggregated microsimulation model, is employed to forecast changes in household residential locations using the estimation results of the residential location choice model. These suggest that different income groups show different migration patterns.

Residence, workplace and commute: Interrelated spatial choices of knowledge workers in the metropolitan region of Munich

Knowledge workers (KW), as important individual agents who embody, exchange, create and exploit knowledge, contribute to regional competitiveness and growth. To attract and retain them in a region, it is necessary to have a better understanding of their fundamental spatially-related behaviors including residence, workplace, and commute choices. In this study, we depart from a perspective of knowledge typology (analytical-synthetic-symbolic knowledge base) to investigate the heterogeneity of knowledge workers' residence, workplace, and commute choices. The case study was conducted in the metropolitan region of Munich. Various types of data are integrated: structural statistical and individually-based web-survey data; individuals' actual choices and their assessment of importance for each criterion; positional and relational data. We find that symbolic Advanced-Producer-Services (APS) workers tend to reside in central areas and use public transport or active modes to commute. In contrast, synthetic high-tech workers are found in relatively peripheral areas and depend more on cars to reach their workplaces. The spatially-related choices of analytical high-tech and synthetic-APS workers are positioned in between symbolic APS-workers and synthetic high-tech workers. We reach three conclusions: Firstly, the features of the knowledge base are evident in the spatial choices of knowledge workers. Secondly, there is a consistency of characteristics between interrelated spaces surrounding residence, workplace, as well as along the commute path of knowledge workers. Lastly, while the influence of the knowledge base has to be weighed against socio-demographic factors, different groups of knowledge workers clearly display distinct choices of residential location and commute mode. These conclusions may provide insights for urban planners and policy-makers regarding the attraction and retention of knowledge workers.

Transit-oriented development in an urban rail transportation corridor

Transit-oriented development (TOD) has been recognized as an important avenue for creating a green transportation system. This paper addresses TOD investment issue in terms of the location, number and size of the TOD zones along a rail line. An urban system equilibrium problem with TOD investment is first formulated. Two social welfare maximization models, which take into account different investment regimes for TOD projects (i.e., public and private), are then proposed for optimizing TOD investment schemes along a rail line and train service frequency on that line. In the public regime model, the government is responsible for the investment cost of TOD projects, which is borne by the private property developers in the private regime model. The proposed models explicitly consider the interactions among the government, property developers and households in the urban system, together with the effects of the TOD investment on households’ residential location choices and housing market. The population thresholds for investing in a TOD project under the public and private regimes are also identified. The findings show that the TOD investment can cause population agglomeration at the TOD zones and a compact city; households and the society can benefit from the TOD investment; and the private TOD investment regime outperforms the public regime in terms of total social welfare of urban system.

Develop first, make amends later: accessibility within residential neighbourhoods in Ghana

Accessibility is frequently reported in transportation and urban planning studies as an important factor in the location or design of residential neighbourhoods. But, to what extent does accessibility influence residential location decisions of households remains unknown in urban Ghana. This paper uses household surveys and agency consultations to examine the relative importance of accessibility (i.e. street connectivity, motorability and mobility) in households’ residential location choices in the Adenta Municipality, Ghana. The experiences described by urban households indicate a strong association with accessibility in their location decisions. This implies that areas with poor street connectivity, motorability and mobility will possibly tend to be less attractive to would-be residents. The study further revealed that household respondents do not merely locate in areas just for the sake of it, rather, they are informed by a variety of accessibility attributes among them include cost of travel, proximity to road, street type, distance to work, travel time, proximity to work and traffic-related nuisance. As a result, although many household respondents (59.74%) developed their residential units in areas with limited or no accessibility, they expressed strong appreciation of the importance of, and the need for accessibility in residential neighbourhoods to ensure effective functionality of the municipality, in relation to connecting activity zones such as work places, shopping and recreational areas. Planning implications are further presented.

ROLE OF THE STREET NETWORK IN BURGLARS' SPATIAL DECISION‐MAKING*

Explaining why crime is spatially concentrated has been a central theme of much criminological research. Although various theories focus on neighborhood social processes, environmental criminology asserts that the physical environment plays a central role by shaping people's activity patterns and the opportunities for crime. Here, we test theoretical expectations regarding the role of the road network in shaping the spatial distribution of crime and, in contrast to prior research, disentangle how it might influence offender awareness of criminal opportunities and the supply of ambient guardianship. With a mixed logit (discrete choice) model, we use data regarding (N = 459) residential burglaries (for the first time) to model offender spatial decision‐making at the street segment level. Novel graph theory metrics are developed to estimate offender awareness of street segments and to estimate levels of ambient guardianship, distinguishing between local and nonlocal guardianship. As predicted by crime pattern theory, novel metrics concerning offender familiarity and effort were significant predictors of residential burglary location choices. And, in line with Newman's (1972) concept of defensible space, nonlocal (local) pedestrian traffic was found to be associated with an increase (decrease) in burglary risk. Our findings also demonstrate that “taste” preferences vary across offenders, which presents a challenge for future research to explain.

Cordon toll pricing in a multi-modal linear monocentric city with stochastic auto travel time

ABSTRACTThis paper proposes an analytical model to determine the optimal cordon toll pricing scheme in a linear monocentric city with a competitive railway/highway system. It is assumed that the daily commuting time by rail mode is deterministic, while that by auto is stochastic and location dependent across the city. The travel time uncertainty could affect residents’ residential location choices and thus the urban spatial structure due to a long-term adjustment. In order to hedge against travel time variability on highway, commuters by auto often consider a travel time budget longer than the expected trip time to avoid late arrivals. It shows that ignorance of auto travel time variation may cause a significant bias in the prediction of the urban spatial structure in terms of residential distribution and city size. The implementation of cordon toll pricing scheme can rationalize the urban residential distribution and increase the social welfare of the urban system.

Dynamic life course analysis on residential location choice

From a behavioral viewpoint, people choose where to live based on various factors, including their current situations, past experience, and plans for the future. Some aspects of residential preference might be constant over time, inherited from the initial stage of life, and other parts might be responses to residential biography or other biographical domains like household structure, employment/education, and travel. Capturing these intertemporal dependences needs a life course analysis of residential location choices. However, a serious methodological gap exists between the perceived importance of dynamic life course analyses and quantitative modeling approaches. This study developed a dynamic choice model with cross-sectional and longitudinal heterogeneities as well as discounted utility (called the DU-DCLH model) to describe the decision-making process for residential relocation by incorporating various intertemporal dependences over the life course. Model parameters were estimated using data collected from a life history survey conducted in Japan in 2010. The estimation results firstly confirm the effectiveness of the DU-DCLH model for portraying the dynamics of residential mobility over a life course. Next, it was found that previous experiences dominate decisions on residential location choice and can explain more than 75% of the total variations in choice. It was also revealed that as the mobility age increases, the influence of the past on their choices increases continuously. In contrast, the influence of the present situation is small and almost negligible. Furthermore, the study empirically confirmed not only the influence of time-constant and time-varying preference for residential neighborhoods but also the specific influence of household biography, employment/education biography, and travel biography. This study enriches the existing research by providing a systematic modeling framework incorporating broader behavioral mechanisms for residential location choice over the life course.

Urban Structure and Environmental Externalities

The objective of this paper is to analyze policy design for air pollution management in the spatial context of urban development. We base our analysis on the paper of Ogawa and Fujita (Reg Sci Urban Econ 12:161–196, 1982), which offers a proper theoretical framework of non-monocentric urban land use using static microeconomic theory where the city structure is endogenous. First, we show that when households internalize industrial pollution in their residential location choice, spatialization within the city is reinforced. This impacts directly the emissions of greenhouse gases from commuting. Then, we analyze policy instruments in order to achieve optimal land use pattern when the policy maker has to manage both industrial and commuting related polluting emissions, that interact through the land market.

How do people select their residential locations in Egypt? The case of Alexandria

Affordable housing unit is still a rare resource in Egypt, despite the active role of the government to reform housing policies. The deficits of affordability and housing supply have been addressed intensively in the framework of the Egyptian housing policies. Indeed, housing prices and market conditions can be among the factors that influence the choices of the people to select certain residential locations. However, there are still no significant impacts that show affordability as the primary factor in the self-selection process of residential locations in Egypt. This complicates housing development scenario in Egypt. This paper highlights various debates concerning some of the current assumptions regarding housing development in Egypt. Focusing on Alexandria, Egypt, the main factors influencing current residential location choices are shown to be the availability of public transportation, followed by living in a good neighborhood and housing affordability.

Deconcentrating the poor via public housing policy: What really matters?

This paper explores the role of costs of moving in Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) households' residential location choices and performs a policy simulation predicting the impact of geographically targeted rental subsidies and housing search and counseling services on voucher holders' locational choices. We choose households that received housing vouchers from 2008 to 2010 in the twin cities of Champaign-Urbana in Illinois and track their residential locations using restricted-use administrative data. We adopt the Mixed Logit (ML) approach to model voucher holders' locational choices accounting for heterogeneous preferences over costs of moving factors and dwelling and neighborhood attributes. Our main findings show that the HCV households are responsive to costs of moving indicating that there is a strong disincentive for the moves. The ML model results reveal a high level of statistical significance of heterogeneity in preferences among the HCV households providing empirical evidence to support previous literature that recipients would face different levels of costs of moving based on their socio-economic characteristics. The estimates also suggest that geographically targeted rental subsidies exert a larger relocation effect, moving 22.87% of high-poverty residents into low- and mid-poverty neighborhoods, when they are combined with a local housing authority's housing search counseling and supportive services.

First-Best Dynamic Assignment of Commuters with Endogenous Heterogeneities in a Corridor Network

Abstract: We study a parsimonious theory that synthesizes short-term traffic demand management (TDM) policies with long-term endogenous heterogeneities of demand. In a corridor network with multiple discrete bottlenecks, we study a model of system optimal assignment that integrates the short-term problem (departure time choice with tolling) and the long-term problem (job and residential location choice). For the short-term departure-time-choice equilibrium, under mild assumptions on schedule delay function, we derive analytical solutions under a first-best TDM scheme. Investigating properties of long-term equilibria, we found that the overall equilibrium pattern exhibits remarkable spatio-temporal sorting properties. It is further shown that a lack of integration of the short- and the long-term policy results in excessive investments for long-term road construction.