Measuring Exterior Housing Quality in Four Older-Urban Neighbourhoods in Windsor, Ontario

Abstract

Four theoretically-deduced hypotheses about geographical and temporal variations in exterior housing quality within a neighbourhood are summarized as a renovation-or deterioration-of-self effect, a contagion-down-the-street effect, a distance-from-riverbank effect, and a distance-fromcore effect. These hypotheses are tested with data for the exterior conditions of hundreds of single-detached (-like) houses that have been individually surveyed twice with the same instrument in four older-urban neighbourhoods in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Each surveyed house's rated conditions of 12 exterior attributes are in particular utilized to calculate its overall exterior quality as a percentage above or below normal. Findings are that houses' exteriors had average "normal" weathered conditions for Canada. Even so, overall exterior housing qualities in three neighbourhoods exemplified a hypothesized deterioration-of-self effect and proximity-to-core effect, as they had especially declined from their original survey to their resurvey for houses located near to a core such as downtown or a casino. In addition, the hypothesized distance-from-riverbank effect was observed in one neighbourhood where overall exterior housing quality linearly deteriorated with farther distance from a riverbank. Finally, overall exterior housing qualities had no observable contagion-down-the-street effect, and so, residents were not reacting positively or negatively to their neighbours' maintenance and improvement of their homes' exteriors.

Use of repeat house sales to measure changes since the early‐ or mid‐1980s in two inner‐city neighbourhoods in Windsor, Ontario

“…In conclusion, resale prices of homes in their current condition have indeed been affected by past changes in their attributes; and changed resale prices of those homes have also been causes of changes in the types of residents living in and nearby them. Questions, however, remain for future research about the locations of homes with or without changes in their dwelling unit's or neighbourhood's attributes, and the timings of these changes, especially when another study of both neighbourhoods has inferred deterioration in overall exterior housing quality near to downtown Windsor and its farther‐away durability (Phipps ). In this paper, correlated differences in prices with changes in attributes indicate that homes' prices adapted more to changes in attributes of the dwelling unit than those of the neighbourhood; they did this more in one neighbourhood, Wellington‐Crawford, than the other, Glengarry.…”

“…Inside a neighbourhood, property owners, including owner‐occupier residents, will have different willingness and abilities for maintaining and renovating homes (Baum and Hassan ; Weaver and Bagchi‐Sen ; Phipps ). Similarly, developers and builders will make business calculations about conserving existing housing or demolishing it (De Bruin and Flint‐Hartle ; Burby et al ).…”

“…These homes are all inhabitable units sold through the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) from 1981 to mid‐2017 in Glengarry and 1986 to mid‐2017 in Wellington‐Crawford. They represent approximately two‐thirds of the single‐detached and duplex houses in each inner‐city neighbourhood as estimated in another project (Phipps ). Sold homes interestingly have uniform distributions across two neighbourhoods, on the maps available online at http://web2.uwindsor.ca/courses/sociology/phipps/agp/gwc/gwcmaps.html (Figure ).…”