Residential preferences versus sustainable cities: Quantitative and qualitative evidence from a survey of relocating owner-occupiers

Abstract

The paper addresses the question of the acceptability to residents of policies promoting more sustainable urban forms through compaction or intensification and greater land use mixing. It does so by examining the motives, behaviour and preferences of a sample of households moving house within the owner-occupied sector in the Cardiff region of South Wales. The findings suggest that most relocating households prefer, and actively seek to move to, less sustainable detached or semi-detached housing with private gardens, often in suburban locations. Apartment living and city centre and dockland locations are rarely preferred. Access to facilities in mixed land use areas appears not to be a prominent concern for many. To reconcile these results with the apparent buoyancy of housing markets in central city and dockland locations, the characteristics and preferences of residents in these areas are examined.