Neighbourhood Change... Reason to Leave?

Abstract

Very little attention has been paid to date to the role of a changing neighbourhood as a factor influencing the residential choice process. Especially the social structure of a neighbourhood can change fast as some neighbourhoods experience very high levels of population turnover. Processes of neighbourhood change are often beyond residents' sphere of influence and if a changing neighbourhood causes residential stress, the only way to improve one's neighbourhood is to move to a better one. This study aims to get more insight in the effect of neighbourhood change on residential stress by studying residents' wish to leave their neighbourhood. Using data from the 2002 Housing Demand Survey enriched with neighbourhood characteristics and multilevel logistic regression, we model whether or not people have the wish to leave their neighbourhood. The results show no effect of a change in the socio-economic status of the neighbourhood on moving wishes. A high level of population turnover and an increase of the proportion of non-western ethnic minorities in the neighbourhood increase the probability that residents want to leave their neighbourhood. The latter effect disappears when controlled for residents' subjective opinion about neighbourhood change.

Neighbourhood selection of non-Western ethnic minorities: testing the own-group effects hypothesis using a conditional logit model

“…Minority ethnic groups are found to be more likely than others to move to minorityconcentration neighbourhoods (Brama, 2006;Clark and Ledwith, 2007;Doff, 2010;South and Crowder, 1998) and less likely to leave these neighbourhoods (Bolt and Van Kempen, 2010;Feijten and Van Ham, 2009;Pais et al, 2009;Van Ham and Clark, 2009). These patterns of selective mobility lead to segregation.…”

Neighbourhood Choice and Neighbourhood Reproduction

“…The primary driver of these decisions is household dissatisfaction with the existing dwelling in relation to household preferences and needs (Brown and Moore, 1970;Clark and Dieleman, 1996). The role of neighbourhood characteristics in mobility decisions has received less attention, but the body of literature which includes neighbourhood characteristics in models of residential mobility is growing (Clark and Ledwith, 2006;Feijten and van Ham, 2009;Kearns and Parkes, 2003;Lee et al, 1994;Permentier et al, 2009;van Ham and Clark, 2009;van Ham and Feijten, 2008). Studies investigating the second step in the decision making process (the choice of destination) have mainly focused on dwelling types (tenure, size, price) and less attention has been paid to location and neighbourhood characteristics.…”

Untitled

“…The importance of neighborhood changes is also acknowledged in previous studies on interethnic relations in a neighborhood environment. It has been found, for example, that an increase in ethnic concentration negatively affect residents' general interethnic attitudes and neighborhood satisfaction (Feijten & van Ham, 2009;Gijsberts & Dagevos, 2007). Changing neighborhood conditions may cause stress as neighborhood characteristics no longer meet the preferences or needs of residents (Feijten & van Ham, 2009).…”