Who Wants to Leave the Neighbourhood? The Effect of Being Different from the Neighbourhood Population on Wishes to Move

Abstract

This is the author's Post-print version (final draft post-refereeing as accepted for publication by the journal). The definitive, peer-reviewed and edited version of this AbstractLittle attention has been paid to date to the role of the neighbourhood as a factor influencing residential mobility and the residential choice process. The question addressed here is to what extent neighbourhood characteristics (percentage of rented dwellings, low income households and ethnic minorities in the neighbourhood) influence different categories residents wish to leave their neighbourhood. The answer to this question is capable of enhancing our understanding of residential mobility and mechanisms causing segregation by income and ethnic groups. We use data from the 2002 Netherlands Housing Demand Survey, enriched with neighbourhood characteristics. Whether or not people wish to leave their neighbourhood is estimated using a multilevel logistic regression model with cross-level interaction effects between individual and neighbourhood characteristics. The main result shows that with an increasing percentage of people from an ethnic minority in the neighbourhood, more people have the wish to leave the neighbourhood. However, this is to a lesser extent the case for members of ethnic minorities themselves.

Minority Ethnic Groups in the Dutch Housing Market: Spatial Segregation, Relocation Dynamics and Housing Policy

“…Again, this association is substantially stronger for the native Dutch and the Western immigrants than for the other groups. This difference also holds when differences in background variables are controlled for (Van Ham and Feijten, 2007). This support the idea that ethnic differences in neighbourhood choices are at least partly explained by differences in neighbourhood preferences.…”

The effect of neighbourhood housing tenure mix on labour market outcomes: a longitudinal investigation of neighbourhood effects

“…Even if we believed that mixed neighbourhoods would have the desired effects, we think that it will be very difficult to create sustainable mixed tenure areas. There is evidence from the Netherlands that people do not want to live in mixed areas, including mixed tenure areas (Van Ham & Feijten, 2008;see also Van Ham and Clark, forthcoming). Also, there is evidence that there is little interaction between tenure groups in mixed tenure neighbourhoods (Atkinson & Kintrea, 1998;Jupp, 1999).…”

Social cohesion, social mix, and urban policies in the Netherlands

“…Differences in lifestyle make it not very likely that people with different characteristics will develop social relationships. People like to live among people with similar characteristics (Van Ham and Feijten 2008). It is therefore no surprise that the quantitative studies described above showed that homogeneous neighbourhoods score better than heterogeneous neighbourhoods.…”