Determinants of neighbourhood satisfaction and perception of neighbourhood reputation

It has been suggested that the residential mobility behaviour and general well-being of residents of urban neighbourhoods are not only influenced by how residents themselves assess their neighbourhood, but also by how they think other city residents see their neighbourhood: the perceived reputation of the neighbourhood. There is a large body of literature on residents' satisfaction with their neighbourhood, but much less is known about how residents perceive the reputation of their own neighbourhood. Such knowledge might give important clues on how to improve the well-being of residents in deprived neighbourhoods, not only by directly improving the factors that affect their own level of satisfaction, but also by improving the factors that residents think have a negative effect on the reputation of their neighbourhood. This paper examines whether there are differences in the determinants of neighbourhood satisfaction and the perceived reputation of the neighbourhood. Using data from a purpose-designed survey to study neighbourhood reputations in the city of Utrecht, the Netherlands, it is found that subjective assessment of the dwelling and neighbourhood attributes are more important in explaining neighbourhood satisfaction than in explaining perception of reputation. Objective neighbourhood variables are more important in explaining perception of reputation than in explaining neighbourhood satisfaction.PostprintPeer reviewe

Особенности формирования стратегии внешнеэкономической деятельности предприятия

Collective efficacy is defined as social cohesion among neighbors combined with their willingness to intervene on behalf of the common good. Through collective efficacy, forms of perceived neighborhood disorder may be successfully targeted. Simultaneously, perceived disorder undermines preconditions for collective efficacy, informal social control, and (collective) action. Most research on this theme has been quantitative, not always clarifying the micro social processes at stake. This also concerns residents' willingness to intervene and their considerations for intervening or refraining from action. Additionally, most studies have addressed high-poverty neighborhoods, ignoring valuable lessons from more prosperous neighborhoods. This article aims to fill these gaps. We conducted 90 semistructured interviews with residents in six inner-city neighborhoods in The Netherlands. Interview transcript analysis shows how residents' willingness to intervene is related to public familiarity, communicative skills, and fear. In turn, fear depends on the seriousness of perceived disorder, being outnumbered, previous experiences, and hearsay. We also show ambivalent ways in which social ties affect residents' willingness to intervene. Social ties may stimulate public familiarity, but also exchange of negative experiences with social control and free rider issues

Contextual effects on populist radical right support:Consensual neighbourhood effects and the Dutch PVV

This study examines contextual effects on support for the Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV), a Dutch populist radical right-wing party. It examines the two most frequently researched contextual effects, that of the local ethnic composition and of local economic conditions. Furthermore, it investigates the effect of the local normative context, through which people are hypothesised to be influenced by their neighbours' political views. Analysing survey data from The Netherlands Longitudinal Lifecourse Study using multilevel logistic regression, no effects are found for the local ethnic composition and local economic conditions after controlling for individual characteristics. In addition, PVV support is much lower in districts with higher shares of highly educated residents, which is in line with theories on consensual neighbourhood effects. This effect is found to be non-linear and only turns negative when around 25 per cent of the population of a district is highly educated. Additional analyses show that contact with neighbours, which is often assumed to explain this effect, is not a prerequisite for the effect to occur

Neighborhood decline and the economic crisis : an introduction

Some of Maarten van Ham’s time on this project has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / ERC Grant Agreement n. 615159 (ERC Consolidator Grant DEPRIVEDHOODS, Socio-spatial inequality, deprived neighbourhoods, and neighbourhood effects) and from the Marie Curie programme under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / Career Integration Grant n. PCIG10-GA-2011-303728 (CIG Grant NBHCHOICE, Neighbourhood choice, neighbourhood sorting, and neighbourhood effects), Platform31 (The Netherlands).Urban neighborhoods are still important in the lives of its residents. Therefore, it is important to find out how the recent global financial and economic crisis affects these neighborhoods. Which types of neighborhoods and which residents suffer more than others? This introduction provides an overview of the papers in this special feature that focus on this question. It concludes with the statement that governments should specifically pay attention to the poor neighborhoods and the people living there, because here the effects of the crisis are very prominent and in many cases probably long-lasting.PostprintPeer reviewe

Місце України в процесах глобалізації світового туристичного ринку

Мета статті: визначити, чи має Україна можливості для активної участі в процесах глобалізації шляхом глибокого аналізу рекреаційного потенціалу окремих її туристичних регіонів

Zelfbouw in reflectie: evaluatie SEV-experimenten (C)PO/MO

Dit rapport betreft een evaluatie van circa 60 projecten die de Stuurgroep Experimenten Volkshuisvesting (SEV) in de afgelopen 10 à 15 jaar heeft ondersteund met betrekking tot (collectief) particulier en medeopdrachtgeverschap in de woningbouw. Aanleiding daartoe werd gevormd door de algemene behoefte aan meer keuzevrijheid en meer markt in de Nederlandse woningbouw. Tegelijkertijd werd indertijd verondersteld dat particulier opdrachtgeverschap beter aan zou sluiten bij de behoefte van de woonconsumenten, alsmede sneller en goedkoper te realiseren zou zijn dan de reguliere seriematige nieuwbouw. Als zodanig stonden deze doelstellingen ook centraal in de VROM beleidsnota „Mensen, Wensen, Wonen‟ van 2000. Mede naar aanleiding van de in de Tweede Kamer algemeen aanvaarde motie Van Gent/Duivesteijn, werd zelfs beoogd om vanaf 2005 ongeveer 1/3 van de nieuw te bouwen woningen in particulier opdrachtgeverschap te realiseren. Desalniettemin hebben (collectief) particulier en medeopdrachtgeverschap sindsdien niet zo‟n hoge vlucht gekend als beoogd. Het richtgetal van 33,3% van de totale bouwproductie is bij lange na niet gehaald. Sterker nog, daar waar midden jaren negentig van de afgelopen eeuw 17% van de totale Nederlandse bouwproductie in particulier opdrachtgeverschap werd gerealiseerd, is dit thans nog slechts een ruime 10%. Ook het aandeel van de verhuisgeneigden, die zeggen voor (C)PO/MO te willen gaan is in de afgelopen vier jaar afgenomen van 36% naar 28%

The Global Financial Crisis and neighborhood decline

The Global Financial Crisis (GFC), which started in 2008, has had a major impact on many Western European and North American countries. In the years preceding the crisis, many countries in the Global North experienced rising house prices, accompanied by an expansion of mortgage financing (Wachter, 2015). As the financial market has become increasingly global, the collapse of the subprime mortgage market and house price bubble in the United States (US) has had repercussions on a global scale (Martin, 2011). While there were significant differences between impacted countries in the timing and macroeconomic processes underlying the GFC, the characteristics of the subsequent economic recession have been similar: stagnating economic growth, a sovereign debt crisis, and rising unemployment (Aalbers, 2015). Many governments have responded to the declining economy and growing unemployment levels with the implementation of major budget cuts for social provisions (Peck, 2012). This has contributed to both relative and absolute growth in the number of economically disadvantaged households and has exacerbated poverty on both sides of the Atlantic. While the average income of the top 10% of the populations of OECD countries was essentially unaffected by the crisis, the average income of households in the lowest income decile experienced an annual decline of 2% between 2007 and 2010 (OECD, 2013a). In many countries, the GFC has also had a major impact on the housing market, evidenced by a large drop in home prices and declining sales of both existing and new-build housing (Van Der Heijden et al., 2011). Today, many countries are slowly recovering from the first shocks of the GFC and the economic recession that followed. However, in many Southern European countries, unemployment rates continue to be very high and, although unemployment is declining in places like the United States and Germany, long-term unemployment appears to be a persistent problem in many countries (OECD, 2014; Shierholz, 2014). Similarly, despite graudual stock market recoveries and some modest increases in house prices, repercussions from the GFC and economic recession persist in all countries. In many countries, the GFC has had predictable effects on the supply side of the housing market - the willingness of banks to lend money to prospective owners has generally declined. In some countries, investors in real estate became more selective, avoiding projects with too much risk; in the United States, in contrast, investors of another ilk have bought large numbers of foreclosed, real estate owned (REO) properties with the main goal of making a profit (e.g. Mallach, 2010b). Regeneration and restructuring initiatives have been put on hold throughout Western Europe (Boelhouwer & Priemus, 2014; Raco & Tasan-Kok, 2009; Schwartz, 2011). While some governments, such as the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, implemented stimulus programs to generate more (affordable) housing in the years after the crisis, recent budget cuts have put an end to these programs (Scanlon & Elsinga, 2014; Schwartz, 2011). The demand side of the housing market has also changed. Banks have tightened lending terms, making it more difficult for many households to obtain a mortgage (Goodman et al., 2015). As a result, there is more demand for private rentals and social or public housing. The GFC has affected employment on both sides of the Atlantic, in terms of either high unemployment levels or a shift toward more casualized labor contracts such as zero hour or temporary employment contracts (Aalbers, 2015; Puno & Thomas, 2010). This has led to financial strain and housing affordability problems for many households (JCHS, 2015). In the United States, households that are behind on their mortgage payments, and that are unable to obtain a mortgage modification with their lender, are faced with displacement due to foreclosure. This results in a large group of residents with badly damaged credit ratings who are in search of post-foreclosure housing in nearby areas (Martin, 2012). In other countries where the option of foreclosure is often not available, households that are unable to pay their rent or mortgage often have to move to cheaper dwellings and less attractive neighborhoods, while others have to stay put, because moving is too expensive or alternatives are not available, or because negative equity makes it impossible for them to move. All of these developments have contributed to rising inequality in the Global North, particularly in terms of income and housing (e.g. Immervoll et al., 2011; Bellman & Gerner, 2011). The GFC therefore raises questions about the future development of neighborhoods, especially because inequality tends to have specific spatial outcomes including increased segregation, increased spatial concentrations of low-income groups, and negative neighborhood effects (e.g., European Commission, 2010; Glaeser et al., 2009; Van Eijk, 2010; Zwiers & Koster, 2015). While there has been little research on the effects of the GFC at the neighborhood level, the evidence described above suggests that the effects are distributed unevenly across urban areas (Foster & Kleit, 2015;   Batson & Monnat, 2015). As households in the bottom income decile have experienced the sharpest drop in income, the effects of the GFC are likely to be felt most acutely in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods (see also Rugh & Massey, 2010; Thomas, 2013). In view of these concerns, this article sets out to identify factors that affect neighborhood decline in the aftermath of the GFC. Many economists have pointed to structural changes in national housing markets and to the changing role of states as important consequences of the GFC (e.g. Wachter, 2015), yet, few researchers analyze how these changes play out at the neighborhood level. Similarly, housing researchers have identified multiple drivers behind neighborhood decline, but many of them focus on within-neighborhood processes at the expense of developments at higher scale levels (Van Beckhoven et al., 2009). In this paper, we aim to bridge this gap by presenting 10 hypotheses on how changes at different geographical scales affect neighborhood decline. Our goal is not to create the next ideal-type model of neighborhood decline processes; rather, we seek to further the intellectual debate on neighborhood decline call for more research on the spatial consequences of the GFC, specifically on neighborhoods as an important territorial dimension of increasing inequality. Our hypotheses mainly pertain to the Global North. Although these countries have very different political, economic, and social structures, research on neighborhood change in different contexts in the Global North has often led to broadly similar findings. This suggests that many of the underlying processes of neighborhood change are comparable across countries. In the same vein, the increasingly global nature of financial and housing markets (Aalbers, 2015) yields similarities in the effects of the GFC and the economic recession between countries. However, the effects of the GFC are mediated by national policies, local (housing market) circumstances, and intra-neighborhood processes, meaning that the GFC has different outcomes in different places. The next section of this article presents a short discussion of definitions of neighborhoods and neighborhood decline. We then highlight important elements from existing studies to formulate 10 hypotheses about the effects of the GFC and the economic recession on neighborhood decline. These hypotheses are divided over three sections, each with a different geographical focus. The conclusion brings our arguments together and calls for more contextualized longitudinal research.&nbsp

Hyper-diversity in/and geographies of childhood and youth

This paper reviews recent work on childhood, youth and diversity in geography. It argues for a need to move from conceptualisations of super-diversity to notions of hyper-diversity. Such a move recognises how multiple facets of social difference extend beyond commonly used identity categories deployed in intersectional or superdiverse analyses. In particular, the notion of hyper-diversity enables an exploration of how identity categories articulate with materialities, feelings and everyday practices. The paper sets out some starting propositions for theorisations of hyper-diversity, childhood and youth, whilst recognising the need for critical reflection upon the term’s usefulness, especially when set alongside other conceptual languages for understanding intersections of age with other forms of difference. Finally, the paper introduces the four articles that comprise this special issue

Governance Networks and Accountability Patterns in the Provision of Housing for Migrants: The Case of Central and Eastern European Workers in the Netherlands

Sub-standard living conditions among migrant workers have become a structural feature all over Europe. Although this has attracted the attention of many scholars, there is a lack of studies on the complex relations between various stakeholders in governing housing. This study fills this gap by analysing this housing issue from a governance network perspective. Through an analysis of policy documents and interviews with twenty-one stakeholders, we investigated institutional and strategic complexities. The results show that decision-making is complicated by unclear institutional accountability patterns and the diverging strategic interests of various stakeholders. The interrelationship between the loosely defined institutional setting (structure) and the varying interests of involved actors (agency) has led to a policy impasse that is difficult to breach. We argue that a reconsideration of existing accountability patterns is needed to reduce sub-standard housing conditions among migrant workers in the Netherlands