Beyond Housing Preferences: Urban Structure and Actualisation of Residential Area Preferences

Abstract

The concept of residential housing preferences has been studied across multiple disciplines, with extensive literature supporting both stated and revealed preference methods. This study argues that both preference types, stated and revealed, should be assessed concurrently to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of residential housing choices. To provide evidence, this research used findings from a public participation GIS survey that identified the stated housing preferences associated with three categories of urban residents, which were called urban “tribes”. We implemented an analytical framework using fuzzy modelling to relate stated preferences with revealed preferences for the same individuals using empirical data describing the urban structure in Tampere, Finland. Following an analysis of the relationships between residents’ revealed preferences and urban structural variables, we examined the consistency of stated housing preferences with revealed preferences. The results show considerable mismatch between the stated and revealed preferences for the urban tribes that were examined i.e., the preferred housing environment was significantly different from the actual living environment. Further, the stated preferences showed disequilibrium within the current structure of the housing supply in Tampere. The findings can have important implications for housing policy making in Tampere. Further, the use of a novel fuzzy model approach demonstrated a flexible and tolerant method for working with imprecise and variable social data to capture subtle differences. Finally, this study elaborately discusses the remaining limitations and suggests how they should be addressed in future research.

A methodological framework for analysis of participatory mapping data in research, planning, and management

“…Hasanzadeh et al (2018) developed an individualized residential exposure model (IREM) to estimate local activity space of an individual, recognizing that the place exposure not only varies from one person to another in its geographical extents, but also from place to place in its magnitude. Mathematical models have also been applied to relate stated residential housing preferences with revealed preferences for the same individuals using empirical data describing the urban structure (Hasanzadeh et al 2019).…”

Residential Land Use Change in the Wissahickon Creek Watershed: Profitability and Sustainability?

“…Summing over the monitoring stations yielded the additive form of the weighted WQI (WWQI) and weighted IBI (WIBI) for each scenario. Equations (2) and (3) show the forms of these indices. Equation (4) shows the geometric form of the WWQI.…”

“…Runoff coefficients were not estimated here. As with Hasanzadeh et al [2], Saiz [3], and others, it used GIS and related software to manipulate the spatial data. However, it involved the supply of housing units placed in criteria-suitable areas within precise municipal zoning codes.…”

“…Different aspects of the work in this paper have been investigated by previous authors. Much of the literature on the geographical aspects of housing, as shown in Hasanzadeh et al [2], deals with the demand side. Using public participation Geographic Information Systems (GIS), the authors investigated whether people inhabited the parts of the urban structure that their classification of urbanists, semi-urbanists, and nature-lovers suggested they would.…”

Group Spatial Preferences of Residential Locations—Simplified Method Based on Crowdsourced Spatial Data and MCDA

“…This issue was also raised in the context of studies on choices about the form of transport [68]. Hasanzadeh et al [27] evaluated the consistency of the preferred housing environment of participants (stated preferences) with their actual living environment (revealed preferences). The results they obtained showed a considerable lack of consistency.…”