Home » Posts tagged 'location'
Tag Archives: location
Article share: on making more affordable neighborhoods
I’ve been commenting about how transportation cannot be isolated and the need to relate it to other factors such as housing or home location choice. The latter though is also affected by other factors as well that affect the affordability of homes near the city centers or CBDs where workplaces and schools are located. The result of course is sprawl or the encouragement of sprawl. Private companies take advantage of this or contribute to this ‘encouragement’ by developing land farther away from the center. Thus, for Metro Manila’s case, many people reside in the peripheral provinces of Bulacan, Rizal, Laguna and Cavite. There are even those who choose to reside in Pampanga, Bataan and Batangas.
Kayatekin, C.S. and Sanmiguel, L.U. (April 16, 2024) ” ‘Urban form’ and the housing crisis: can streets and buildings make a neighborhood more affordable?” The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/urban-form-and-the-housing-crisis-can-streets-and-buildings-make-a-neighbourhood-more-affordable-224108 [Last accessed: 4/23/2024]
Quoting from the article:
“Our main finding was that the bottom-up districts we looked at had, overall, more small-scale apartments. The reason is simple: they had more small-scale buildings, built on small-scale plots. Once divided into apartments, this produces small apartments – homes in the bottom-up areas were 10% to 23.1% smaller than their top-down counterparts. This also made their real estate markets for small homes more competitive, and therefore more affordable.
However, our study showed there is nothing inherently magical about bottom-up areas. Their more intricate housing stock has little to do with the layout of streets and blocks, and a lot to do with how that land is built upon.
Plot size appears to be the deciding factor: the districts with greater numbers of small buildings built on small plots supported a denser and more affordable housing stock, regardless of whether they were top-down or bottom-up.
Older bottom-up areas seem to naturally lend themselves to having more small-scale plots. This is likely due to the incremental development of these areas, and the complex land ownership patterns that developed as a result. However, there is no reason why a top-down area cannot be designed to replicate these characteristics.”
–
Another look at home location choices
I recently shared an article showing the results of a survey conducted in the US. That survey appears to show that Americans prefer sprawl. But that may be due to many factors including political leanings that are actually mentioned in the article. I share another article that appears to be a reaction to the first one.
Lewyn, M. (August 14, 2023) “Do Americans Really Prefer Sprawl?” Planetizen, https://www.planetizen.com/blogs/125112-do-americans-really-prefer-sprawl?utm_source=newswire&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=news-08142023&mc_cid=cd3b2e2ba5&mc_eid=9ccfe464b1 [Last accessed: 8/16/2023]
To quote from the article:
“Why do these surveys yield such drastically different results? The Pew survey notes that 3/4 of rural respondents favor the less walkable alternative; thus, that survey was apparently designed to include a representative sample of Americans, including rural Americans who typically do live in very spread-out environments. It seems to me quite natural that rural Americans would prefer rural lifestyles.
But once rural respondents are excluded, the balance between sprawl and walkable communities in the Pew survey becomes almost a toss-up. 57 percent of urban respondents refer houses with smaller yards and more walkability, and an almost-equal percentage of suburban respondents prefer the opposite.”
Again, I wonder what would be the outcomes if a similar survey were done in the Philippines. Will it reveal preferences for single detached homes rather than condos? Who will prefer the latter or the former? What could be the factors affecting home location choices in the Philippines? Cost is definitely a major factor. Commuting times perhaps and even commuting costs? But how do people weigh these factors? And what other influences are there to the decisions to purchase homes?
–
On home location preferences
There’s an interesting article on the preference of Americans for big houses even if these
(August 2, 2023) “Majority of Americans prefer a community with big houses, even if local amenities are far away,” Pew Research Center, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/02/majority-of-americans-prefer-a-community-with-big-houses-even-if-local-amenities-are-farther-away/ [Last accessed: 8/12/2023]
Quoting from the article:
“A majority of Americans (57%) say they would prefer to live in a community where “houses are larger and farther apart, but schools, stores and restaurants are several miles away,” according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted March 27-April 2, 2023. About four-in-ten (42%) would prefer a community where “houses are smaller and closer to each other, but schools, stores and restaurants are within walking distance.”
As general as that statement appears to be, as they say, “the devil is in the details.” The article goes to qualify the statistics according to partisanship, age, education, race and ethnicity, ideology, community type, and community type & partisanship. The resulting stats are quite revealing and helps one understand the survey results.
I wonder what would be the result of a similar survey if one were conduced in the Philippines. There is no partisanship factor here that is similar to the characteristics of Republicans and Democrats in the US. What will it reveal about our preferences? Do Filipinos prefer to have their own houses even if these are located far from workplaces and schools? Or do Filipinos prefer living closer to their workplaces and schools even if it means living in smaller homes? Certainly affordability, which was not mentioned in the article, is a major factor considering the cost of homes in cities compared to prices in the suburbs.
There is a link in the article for the methodology and questions used in the study. That means it would be possible to replicate or adapt these for the Philippine setting.
–
Caught (up) in traffic 