Traditionally, along with stages of the life cycle and changes in people's Wnancial status and their household composition, the commute distance has been identiWed as one of the main explanatory factors for residential locational preferences and subsequent migration Xows. In the Netherlands, telecommuting is rapidly becoming popular and is expected to aVect residential locational preferences. A hypothesis that can be raised is that telecommuting has an impact on the eVect that commute distance has on residential preferences. Based on this hypothesis, this paper investigates the role of telecommuting alongside the traditional factors currently explaining residential locational preferences. The paper provides evidence that, in the Netherlands, telecommuting has enabled people to commute longer distances. The eVect of telecommuting on the probability of relocating, however, is not signiWcant. Telecommuting appears to have a limited eVect on residential location preferences, but traditional factors, such as life cycle stages, remain the dominant explanatory factors.
Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have evolved to such a level that they can facilitate people's access to opportunities in virtual space (through telecommuting, teleshopping, e-learning, and so forth) along with accessing them in physical space. A hybrid space is therefore emerging, which will have consequences for people's spatial behaviour. In particular telecommuting is expected to change residential preferences and affect future urbanisation patterns. To explore this assertion, residential land-use allocation in the 2000 to 2030 period is projected for the Netherlands using a specially designed set of linked models for two scenarios (physical space and hybrid space). Results indicate that urban decentralisation and deconcentration are likely to accelerate because of increasing telecommuting. Attractive regions to live in at medium distances from large cities will in particular be confronted with new urban pressure of a sprawling nature. Urban policies have to be reconsidered to cope with these new spatial development trends. Copyright (c) 2008 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG.
The use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) is changing every aspect of human life. People have access to opportunities like jobs, shopping, public and private offices, etc., in virtual space (the space of flows), without facing the friction of distance in physical space (the space of places), which means that there is now a hybrid space. Changes in the way the activities are being conducted in this hybrid space have the biggest impact on the areas of transportation and communication, where the space of places may be substituted, modified, enhanced or result in higher traffic by the space of flows, where physical distance are reduced to nothing. In the past, physical distance was the measure of accessibility, but distance is now taking on a different meaning, resulting in a change in accessibility. In order to measure accessibility in the emerging hybrid space, we need to take the personal characteristics of people and the nature of the opportunities they are seeking into account more than ever before. By doing so, a model to measure accessibility in this hybrid space is developed which suggests that ICTs will enhance the accessibility of people to their opportunities.
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