Suburban Housing Research Articles

Are Low‐Income Groups More Dependent on Community Space? A Case Study of Nanjing

AbstractCommunity dependence reflects individuals' daily needs for community space and facilities and is closely related to the accurate allocation of social resources and human quality of life. This study examines the differences in community use and dependence among different income groups at the overall and community levels from the perspective of the microscale individual activity space. Compared with non‐low‐income groups, low‐income groups are generally more dependent on their communities during their daily lives. However, these differences are diverse among different communities; they are more moderate among different income groups in communities located in central city areas and significant among different income groups in suburban affordable housing communities. The regression models reveal that in addition to income, the characteristics of activities and built environment attributes also affect individuals' community dependence. Social policies should prioritize the quality and quantity of community resources for vulnerable suburban groups.

Research on the Influencing Factors of House Prices in Chicago

This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the factors that influence housing prices in suburban Chicago. Using detailed regression analysis, several key variables were identified as significant predictors of property value. The study included variables such as the number of bedrooms, square footage, number of rooms, size of the lot, annual taxes, number of bathrooms, number of garages, and the condition of the house. The R-squared value of the model is 0.732, indicating that approximately 73.2% of the house price variance can be explained by the selected variable. Houses with more rooms and more square footage tend to cost more. In addition, characteristics such as the number of garages and bathrooms can also have a significant impact on house prices. These findings provide valuable insights for real estate professionals, buyers and sellers, enabling them to make informed decisions regarding real estate investment and pricing strategies. By understanding the key drivers of house prices, stakeholders can better navigate the suburban housing market and ensure more accurate assessments and strategic planning.

Categorising the Urban Poor: Undermined State Protection for Informal Settlers in the Philippines

This study examines how the state categorises and governs the urban poor in the Philippines, implementing different housing policies for citizens who can pay regular prices and the urban poor who cannot. Slum dwellers who cannot afford land are categorised as “underprivileged and homeless citizens” and receive state protection. Meanwhile, those considered able to afford land are classified as “professional squatters” and are subject to imprisonment and/or fines. Since the 2000s, the state protection has been via market-driven policies, which have proven insufficient as local governments and private developers relocate slum dwellers for high-end housing projects that force these dwellers to purchase relatively expensive socialised housing in suburbs with inadequate infrastructure or livelihood opportunities. This article reviews the inadequacy of state protection by examining the role of courts that might protect slum dwellers from the state’s market-driven policies. This analysis indicates that, based on the building materials of houses, the courts are likely to define slum dwellers as professional squatters. This is not necessarily an accurate reflection of their living standard, compared to income. Underprivileged and homeless citizens are easily relocated under market-driven policies, and if they resist in court, they are likely to be treated as professional squatters.

Unravelling the spatial directionality of urban mobility.

As it is central to sustainable urban development, urban mobility has primarily been scrutinised for its scaling and hierarchical properties. However, traditional analyses frequently overlook spatial directionality, a critical factor in city centre congestion and suburban development. Here, we apply vector computation to unravel the spatial directionality of urban mobility, introducing a two-dimensional anisotropy-centripetality metric. Utilising travel data from 90 million mobile users across 60 Chinese cities, we effectively quantify mobility patterns through this metric, distinguishing between strong monocentric, weak monocentric, and polycentric patterns. Our findings highlight a notable difference: residents in monocentric cities face increasing commuting distances as cities expand, in contrast to the consistent commuting patterns observed in polycentric cities. Notably, mobility anisotropy intensifies in the outskirts of monocentric cities, whereas it remains uniform in polycentric settings. Additionally, centripetality wanes as one moves from the urban core, with a steeper decline observed in polycentric cities. Finally, we reveal that employment attraction strength and commuting distance scaling are key to explaining these divergent urban mobility patterns. These insights are important for shaping effective policies aimed at alleviating congestion and guiding suburban housing development.

Post-Pandemic Health Communication: Adoption of Digital Technologies in Healthcare by Residents of Mumbai

Digitalization has become an important part of human lives in many fields, ranging from education to healthcare. Digital technologies are one of the priorities in the development of the healthcare sector worldwide. During the COVID-19 pandemic, patients became more engaged about medical communication and used digital technologies than ever. Health professionals started using more online/digital platforms to provide patients prescriptions and check patients’ reports. This paper is aimed at examining various forms of digital platforms on healthcare, which patients use for consultation with health professionals. This study is an exploratory observational study in which researcher conducted a semi-structured interviewsin Mumbai suburban housing society. The objectives were to understand nature of health communication post pandemic, perception of family about health and which digital platforms they are using? How are igital platforms being helpful in day-to-day life ? The Study found that most respondents still use an online consultation option with their doctors, pharmacy and lab investigation. The reasons for using digital platforms in spite of scope for physical outreach are time, money and energy savings. They visit hospital or doctor’s clinic in emergency or on unavoidable situations. It was also found that some organizations that pay medical benefits to their staff also started collecting medical prescriptions via WhatsApp. The study emphasizes the importance of digital platform, time and health communication in post pandemic world. The majority of respondents were satisfied with the digital platforms and would like to continue in the future. Among all digital platforms “WhatsApp” was most popular and used, which is still getting used in India. The respondents had significant impact by the use of digital platforms. Although some respondents showed concern related to data privacy. This also indicate shift from oral, face to face communication to mediated digital communication in Asian societies.:Digitalization has become an important part of human lives in many fields, ranging from education to healthcare. Digital technologies are one of the priorities in the development of the healthcare sector worldwide. During the COVID-19 pandemic, patients became more engaged about medical communicationand used digital technologies than ever. Health professionals started using more online/digital platforms to provide patients prescriptions and check patients’ reports. This paper is aimed at examining various forms of digital platforms on healthcare, which patients use for consultation with health professionals. Thisstudy is an exploratory observational study in which researcher conducted a semi-structured interviews in Mumbai suburban housing society. The objectives were to understand nature of health communication post pandemic, perception of family about health and which digital platforms they are using? How are digital platforms being helpful in day-to-day life ? The Study found that most respondents still use an online consultation option with their doctors, pharmacy and lab investigation. Thereasons for using digital platforms in spite of scope for physical outreach are time, money and energy savings. They visit hospital or doctor’s clinic in emergency or on unavoidable situations. It was also found that some organizations thatpay medical benefits to their staff also started collecting medical prescriptions via WhatsApp. The study emphasizes the importance of digital platform, time and health communication in post pandemic world. The majority of respondents were satisfied with the digital platforms and would like to continue in thefuture. Among all digital platforms “WhatsApp” was most popular and used, which is still getting used in India. The respondents had significant impact by the use of digital platforms. Although some respondents showed concern related to data privacy. This also indicate shift from oral, face to face communication to mediated digital communication in Asian societies.:

“The Beauty of Homes Beautiful Collectively”: The Olmsted Firm and the View from the Suburban House

Abstract The landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and his sons John Charles and Frederick Jr. changed the prevailing understanding of the view from the suburban home. Historically, such vistas reflected a sense of isolation in nature, an experience that the early suburban communities of the nineteenth century attempted to replicate. In contrast, the elder Olmsted, in his first suburban design, posited the need for the neighborhood to be visible and distinguishable from the houses; it would form the foreground of views into more distant landscapes. This article examines the lineage of this vista and how Frederick Law Olmsted’s sons, through their firm Olmsted Brothers, later came to replicate it systematically in their suburban projects. A comparison with possible antecedents of this particular view shows that the Olmsteds not only made it a fundamental design factor but also endowed it with ethical and aesthetic qualities.

Extreme homes, extreme consumption? The American Dream in Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

This article examines the phenomenon of the commercialization of the American Dream through the example of consumerism around the realm of the suburban home, a key element of this concept in the United States, as well as the role of reality television in creating and encouraging inflated standards of consumption. It uses the example of the American television show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. The article outlines the history and role of the American Dream, particularly the origins of the term itself, coined by Truslow Adams. The behaviour that Thorsten Veblen calls conspicuous consumption, which is characterized by a tendency to display material status in order to gain social respectability and prestige, is identified. The suburban house as a key element of the American Dream is analysed through the example of the makeovers presented in the programme. Their significant scale and unrealistic nature are often at odds with the real financial capabilities of the participants and are the cause of bankruptcies and financial problems. As the programme belongs to a genre that is supposed to reflect reality, in the light of the cultivation theory, created by George Gerbner, it influences viewers whose world-view is shaped by it and whose role models are imitated. Thus, the presented standards of a comfortable home in line with the American Dream can influence viewers’ consumption behaviour by showing them that the acquisition of possessions is a solution to problems, a reward for an honest life and that there are no financial consequences associated with them. The lavishness of the houses and their luxury reinforce this impression. Finally, the article seeks to answer the question to what extent and why the need of Americans to live up to the vision of living the illusive American Dream – thus creating an image of success and social status – is exaggerated and its standards are taken to an ‘extreme’.

The Absurdity of the Ordinary: The Fragile Affinity Between Imagination and Materiality in the Finnish Urban Periphery

This anthropological study focuses on spatially ordered dimensions of sociocultural life in Kontula, a suburban housing estate located at the urban margins of Helsinki, Finland. With a notorious reputation since its construction in the 1960s, it has come to represent the numerous ills of contemporary urbanity, from poverty and substance abuse to failed immigration policies. Its urban transformation is explored as the entanglement of imagination and materiality, a make-believe space that privileges neither the social constructionist nor the purely materialist perspective. I study the everyday life of its inhabitants as recurring and routinized episodes, occasionally interrupted by events that disturb its embodied flow and force inhabitants to reflect upon their spatially situated practices. I argue that the everyday encounters in rapidly transforming Kontula are simultaneously experienced as absurd and ordinary, and constitute the ordering principles of its affective geography.

Beyond entrepreneurialism: revealing multiple logics of suburban housing development politics in the global city

ABSTRACT There is a burgeoning literature in urban studies on the role of suburbs in the development of global cities. For too long, it is argued, suburbs have been marginalised within urban theory and research. At the same time, planning systems are increasingly driven by growth-centred arrangements that seek to boost private investment and convert complex places into development spaces. Such approaches are built on the experiences of urban centres and the market conditions found within them. Drawing on the London example, the paper develops existing work on global suburbanisms to identify the multiple logics and variable practices of housing policy and delivery that exist within global cities. It makes three contributions. First, it highlights the continuing significance of place-based representative local government in shaping suburban variability. Second, it develops a typology of political clusters to demonstrate the variables that shape the diversity of approaches to housing development policy and delivery that exist. And third, it analyses the interactions between physical landscapes and the rolling-out of market-led models and planning systems. Collectively, the paper points to a methodology for the analysis of suburban environments in cities beyond London, especially those in which political boundaries and physical environments act as a constraint on spatial expansion.

New Digital Order and its Implications on Indian Family Relationships

The extensive adoption of mobile devices in India has revolutionized family communication patterns, presenting new dynamics and challenges. This study investigates the role of mobile communication in various aspects of family relationships, including parent-child interactions, marital relationships, and intergenerational dynamics. The aim is to see the evolving landscape of family relations in the digital era on family communication patterns, psychological well-being, and social connectedness. Mobile devices facilitate frequent and convenient communication, allowing family members to stay connected despite physical distances. It has also been observed to increase monitoring and supervision by parents, which may positively influence parent-child relationships. However, excessive mobile usage and dependency may lead to neglect of face-to-face interactions, resulting in reduced family interactions and communication. It is essential to explore the potential consequences of excessive mobile usage and identify strategies to promote healthy mobile communication practices within Indian families. The researcher conducted ten semi-structured interviews in a suburban housing society in Mumbai suburbs with similar socioeconomic strata. The aim was to know more about how mobile phones affect family communications. Qualitative grounded theory analysis was used to find themes and interpret results. (Creswell, 2013) The study explores the role of mobile communication in family relationships, emphasizing the need for effective management of mobile device usage within households. Setting time limits, boosting digital literacy, and encouraging family activities offline are among tactics that could help lessen the detrimental effects of mobile communication on family dynamics. Furthermore, understanding the cultural context of Indian families is crucial, as it can influence the adoption and interpretation of mobile technology within familial relationships. The research concludes that the role of mobile communication and usage in Indian family relations is a complex and multifaceted process. While mobile devices offer convenience and connectivity, their impact on family dynamics must be considered. This research abstract highlights the need for further investigation into the effects of mobile communication on different aspects of family relationships in the Indian context.

From the editors

Our settlements are under constant threat, struggling to keep up with a changing world, a world with everchanging demands, both from our citizens and our ideals of what a successful settlement should be. Specifically, geo-political forces and factors including migration, war and civil unrest, pandemics and the throes of climate change have come to affect human settlements in multiple ways. Professor Greg Clark (Future Cities and New Industries, HSBC), explains, “In the recent past, we thought a successful city was a city with a major cluster of office jobs in the centre, suburban housing on the fringes, and an attractive set of amenities, facilities, services and public space” (Goodman, 2023). However, the priorities of citizens and town and regional planners are changing, we are setting a new standard for our settlements, expecting more from it, for this living organism to deliver more, be more...

Service-poor suburban housing estates?

Service-poor suburban housing estates?

The suburban ethics of care: Caring for shared spaces in suburban regeneration

The future of suburbs is a debated issue. This paper discusses the questions of care during suburban regeneration in the Nordic context, with an emphasis on shared spaces. The empirical research was conducted in the suburban housing estate of Kontula, in Helsinki, Finland. Theoretically, the study is based on the geographies of care and responsibility together with the ethics of care that is interpreted from a spatial perspective. The questions addressed are how (or if) care for shared spaces manifests in suburban strategies, plans, and regeneration projects, and how these caring notions relate to the views of the suburban care-givers interviewed in the study. As a result, the concept of the suburban ethics of care is proposed to describe how suburbs and their changing environments can be approached in a caring manner. The discussion indicates how the suburban ethics of care is a normative, relational, processual, spatial, and political concept and practice.

Geographies of new mobility services: The emergence of a premium mobility network space

This paper offers a critical perspective on spatial supply structures of new mobility services using the example of carsharing, bikesharing and e-scootersharing. Following conceptual consideration of Splintering Urbanism, the emergence of a Premium Mobility Network Space (PMNS) is propounded; i.e. an exclusive supply of interconnected mobility services that is inscribed in the social and action spaces of the economically and culturally privileged elites of Western (post-industrial) societies by the marked-based mobility providers. Regarding this, we assume that the PMNS is effective intra- and interregionally at different spatial scales because the social and action spaces of the post-industrial elites are correspondingly organized intra- and inter-regionally. A (preliminary) comparative study of German cities over 300,000 inhabitants in this paper suggests that this PMNS mainly extends across the economic and cultural prosperous context of Global Cities. In this city network, the same few market players of Carsharing, Bikesharing, E-Scootersharing, etc. can be located over and over again; i.e. travelers between the cities experience a reduced transaction effort because they do not have to install new apps to use the certain services and find the same services in every global city. By contrast, the supply of new mobility services in other cities that are not part of the global city network – and this applies in particular to the economically weak old industrial cities affected by structural change – is poor to non-existent. In a second step, bivariate and multivariate analyses using Frankfurt/Main as a case study reveal that the socio-spatially exclusive supply of new mobility services continues in the economically and culturally prosperous areas within the global cities themselves. Methodically, the city comparison is based on an Internet and media analysis in order to identify the supply of new mobility services by cities. For the analyses in Frankfurt, certain supply structures were overlaid with official city district data. Overall, our findings point to a spatially selective supply pattern of new mobility services within economically and culturally prosperous spaces, suggesting an interconnected mobility network in the sense of a PMNS. By contrast, urban peripheries beyond the global city are bypassed, i.e., on the one hand, the social spaces of the marginalized underclass in the socio-spatial peripheries and, on the other hand, the dispersed suburban housing estates associated with a traditional middle class that remain oriented toward private automobility. In conclusion, these observations are of great importance because they contradict any sustainability ascriptions that are discursively produced around the supply of new mobility services. The suspicion arises that developing new mobility services under market-based developments only permits socio-spatially fragmented supply structures, but not the expected spatially ubiquitous solution that is needed for sustainable everyday mobilities.

Selling city centre flats in uncertain times: findings from two English cities

The UK’s city centre apartment markets have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic and a building safety crisis in ways not experienced by its suburban and rural housing markets. Sellers and estate agents have encountered falling demand and prices, elevated safety concerns, reluctant lenders and changes in buyers’ preferences. Against this backdrop, we investigated the narratives and images used to sell what have sometimes appeared to be ‘less sellable’ homes. Analysing the textual and visual content of 100 adverts for city centre flats, we explored the possible effects of the pandemic on property advertising, the positioning within adverts of building safety and, noting growing interest in sustainability, the presence of sustainability messages. Findings suggest that the core narratives used to sell city centre flats remain largely unchanged from those deployed to first market the concept of ‘city living’ to UK buyers in the late 1990s. Messages about building safety and sustainability appear uncommon. The implications of the findings are considered.

Faktor yang Mempengaruhi Perkembangan Perumahan Di Pinggiran Kota (Studi Kasus : Kecamatan Boja, Kabupaten Kendal)

Population growth and the activities it carries out make the need for land increase, especially in the city center. Land in the city center which is increasingly limited and expensive is no longer able to be accessed by the community to support its activities so that these activities develop into suburban areas. Boja District is one of the suburban areas affected by the development of the City of Semarang, which is indicated by the growth of residential areas since 2010-2020. The purpose of this research is to find out what factors influence the development of suburban housing, Boja District, Kendal Regency. The analysis technique uses quantitative descriptive. Respondents are people who live in housing in the District of Boja. There are 9 variables used for factor analysis and 100 respondents to be surveyed. The research variables consist of livelihood, level of expenditure, length of stay, area of origin, number of family members, house prices, ease of buying a house, installment costs, and credit terms . This research is studied based on the pattern of housing development in suburban areas and the characteristics of housing residents. The results of this study are that there are 3 factors that influence housing development in Boja District, Kendal Regency, namely socio-economic factors consisting of level of expenditure, regional origin, length of stay and house prices, community consumption factors consisting of number of family members, installment costs and livelihoods, as well as risk factors consisting of the installment period and the ease of buying a house.

National Big Data Experimental Area and the Unexpected Booming of the Housing Price in Guiyang of Guizhou Province of China

Enterprise Zone is an important part of the regional economic development strategy. This paper investigates the impact of overall urban development and construction of the National Big Data (Guizhou) Experimental Area on the housing prices and found out that the construction of the National Big Data (Guizhou) Experimental Area is more conducive to the rise in suburban housing transaction prices. The paper empirically proves that the construction of the National Experimental Zone is more conducive to small family housing and leads to the increase in the suburban housing trading area, which further implies that the National Big Data (Guizhou) Experimental Area project may lead to the migration of residents to the suburbs, thus the increasing the housing price. Such regional planning is conducive to the changing spatial distribution of the residents, relocating the residents to find jobs and live in the suburbs, and increasing the value of suburban areas. This paper provides evidence to quantify the externalities and the premium of the housing prices in the surrounding area and provides empirical evidence on the spatial externalities in the literature.

Anti-Work Architecture: Domestic Labour, Speculative Design, and Automated Plenty

Abstract This article presents a partial history of visions of technodomesticity in the global north, concentrating on dwellings which seek to problematize, challenge, or reorganize unpaid household labour. It is structured around three case studies, primarily drawn from the United States in the 1950s and 1960s: the single-family suburban dream house, the bachelor pad, and the fully automated future home. While these chosen examples may lend us certain resources for thinking about how best to mitigate the challenges of reproductive labour via living arrangements, they also possess a number of clear drawbacks or limitations. The article will argue that contesting these imaginaries (as much as learning from them) is likely to prove necessary in unpicking the connections between an inequitable distribution of unpaid intrafamilial domestic labour and the house itself as both a concrete site and an ideological formation – necessary, that is to say, in terms of building a meaningfully feminist conception of anti-work architecture.

Suburban Housing Creation: Result of Transit Network Expansion in Central City

Suburban Housing Creation: Result of Transit Network Expansion in Central City

Apartment Living and Community Care: Experiences of People With Intellectual Disability, Their Families, and Support Staff

Understanding how the design of urban infrastructure influences the independence and autonomy of people with intellectual disability has far-reaching implications for community inclusion and participation. This article explores how urban design elements of an apartment complex influence how a person with an intellectual disability receives support and participates in the wider community. The study reports on the post-occupancy evaluation of an Australian development of over 400 apartments in Sydney, where 25 people with intellectual disability received 24-hour support. Fifty-three interviews were conducted with people with intellectual disability, their families, and disability support staff. Participants with intellectual disability described what living in their new apartment was like and appreciated the outdoor gardens. However, they also explained that wayfinding was more difficult than in their previous homes—all free-standing group homes. Disability support staff discussed how providing community care for people with intellectual disability in an apartment differed from a suburban free-standing house. Findings were translated into design suggestions for improving service provision to people with disability through the urban design around multi-tower sites of mixed-tenure apartments. The article concludes with recommendations for urban design features to support safe, efficient, and quality care in a high-density urban setting. When viewed through a lens of social infrastructure, the results show how urban design has the potential to influence the collective independence and provision of care to diverse communities in urban centres and cities and is relevant to people with disability, older people, and other community groups who rely on community-care support to remain living independently at home.