Higher Educated Residential Preferences and the Marketing of Private Housing in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area and Hong Kong
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Higher educated residential preferences and the marketing of private housing in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area and Hong Kong Thesis submitted as part of the Research Master Urban Studies, University of Amsterdam Author: Michael Stuart-Fox Student number: 10011455 Email address: [email protected] Supervisor: Prof. Sako Musterd Second reader: Dr. Marco Bontje Date of submission: 19 June 2015 Table of contents Acknowledgements p. 3 Remarks p. 4 1. Introduction and research questions p. 5 2. Theoretical framework, conceptualisation, and operationalisations p. 9 2.1 Lifestyles, values and residential preferences in modern societies p. 9 2.2 Occupational groups, orientation of capital, and residential preferences p.13 2.3 Studies on the intra-metropolitan residential preferences of creative class p.14 2.4 Conceptualisation and type of preferences: stated and intra-metropolitan p.16 2.5 Operationalisations p.18 2.6 Conceptual model p.19 2.7 Definitions and importance of the creative and high-tech sectors p.20 2.8 Theoretical expectations p.21 3. Research design, cases, and methodology p.22 3.1 Case selection and type of case study p.22 3.2 Approach to comparison as a research tool p.23 3.3 Other features of the research design p.24 3.4 Methods of data collection and analysis p.25 4. Descriptions of samples in the MRA and Hong Kong p.27 4.1 Demographic characteristics p.27 4.2 Socio-economic characteristics p.30 5. Stated residential preferences, differences between the MRA and Hong Kong, and the influence of urban contextual factors p.34 5.1 Importance fo amenities in the region and neighbourhood p.34 5.2 Assessment of moving, reasons for (not) moving and dwelling preferences p.39 5.3 Ranking of features of the dwelling, neighbourhood and location p.48 5.4 Ranking of urban and suburban images and locations p.54 5.5 Conclusion p.59 6. Influence of individual- and household-level factors on residential preferences in the MRA and Hong Kong p.60 6.1 Ranking of urban and suburban images and locations p.61 6.2 Ranking of features of the dwelling, neighbourhood and location in the top three p.62 6.3 Importance of amenities in the region and neighbourhood p.66 6.4 Assessment of moving, reasons for (not) moving and dwelling p.68 6.5 Conclusion p.74 7. Online marketing of private housing in the MRA and Hong Kong p.75 7.1 Rationale, expectations, and dimensions of analysis p.75 7.2 Findings p.76 1 8. Conclusion and discussion p.80 8.1 Rationale, expectations, and dimensions of analysis p.80 8.2 Strengths and limitations of the research design p.82 8.3 Future research p.83 Summary p.84 References p.85 Appendix A: Hong Kong questionnaire p.98 Appendix B: Tables belonging to Chapter 4 p.110 B.1 Additional demographic characteristics of respondents p.110 B.2 Educational attainment by family members and completed degrees p.112 B.3 Names of companies and organisations and other work characteristics p.116 B.4 Characteristics of the current dwelling of respondents p.123 Appendix C: Selection of projects and conduct of content analysis in Chapter 7 p.126 Appendix D: Overview of private housing projects included in content analysis in Chapter 7 p.128 D.1 Overview of all Hong Kong projects p. 128 D.2 Overview of all MRA projects p. 154 2 Acknowledgements The completion of this thesis would not have been possible without the help of others. Here I would like to thank Ilona Vierveijzer and Margriet Doorten of Onderzoek, Informatie en Statistiek (OIS) Amsterdam for their kind help in adapting and hosting the Hong Kong version of the online questionnaire and converting the dataset into a file analysable in SPSS. I know the data collection department of OIS has been very busy in recent times so I sincerely appreciate the time Ilona Vierveijzer and Margriet Doorten have put into helping me. I also thank OIS more generally for covering the financial costs that have been associated with both the time investment of staff members and the hosting of the online questionnaire. I thank all respondents in the MRA for completing the questionnaire as part of the Higher Educated Location Preferences (HELP) project on which this thesis builds. I also very much thank all respondents in Hong Kong for taking the time to complete the Hong Kong version of the questionnaire. Knowing that employees in Hong Kong companies and organisations are generally very busy increases my appreciation for the time investment they made. I also appreciate the help of fellow students at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) who helped check the suitability of the questionnaire to the Hong Kong context and assisted in finding respondents. I also thank dr. Roger Chan at HKU for sharing his insights into the creative industries of Hong Kong and for practical help where needed. Last but not least, final words of thanks go to my supervisor prof. Sako Musterd for his very timely feedback, even if I sent chapters a little later than would be ideal, and to my father for his conscientious review of the grammar and spelling. Amsterdam, 19 June 2015, Michael Stuart-Fox 3 Remarks Photograph on cover page: modern high-rise and older low-rise residential buildings in Aberdeen, southern Hong Kong Island, November 2014. Photograph by author. References in the text include page numbers of books, articles or reports in the following cases: a direct quote or paraphrasing, specific statistical data, and if a particular finding, statement or conclusion that is referenced to is contained in a text that is primarily about a somewhat different topic or theme. This makes it easier for the reader to look up the exact section of the article that is referenced to. An example is the reference in Chapter 5 (page 51) to the statement that rent and price levels in Hong Kong rise for residential units the higher they are from the ground. This statement can be found in an article by La Grange (2011) which is a study about class differences in various forms of neighbourhood attachment and not about the relationship between floor height and rent and price levels. When the text mentions ‘Amsterdam’ without any further qualification, it always refers to the municipality of Amsterdam and not any wider entity or region. The Amsterdam Metropolitan Area (MRA) is always referred to by either ‘MRA’ or, occasionally, ‘Amsterdam region’. In the text (a conversion into) ‘number of square metres’ is always provided alongside ‘number of square feet’ to ease interpretation. In the text amounts in Hong Kong dollar (HKD) are not converted into amounts in euro to increase the readability of the text. As of 18 June 2015, 1 HKD = 0.1135 euro. Amounts in HKD can thus be roughly divided by ten and then increased by 10% to get the equivalent amount in euro. The HKD/euro exchange rate fluctuates significantly as the HKD is pegged to the US dollar and thus fluctuates with the changing USD/euro exchange rate. Total number of words in Chapters 1 to 8, excluding all tables, the summary and appendices: 29,636 words. 4 1. Introduction and research questions Introduction The dwelling is a central feature in the daily lives of people. A dwelling provides shelter and security and is a place of relaxation. As the most important spatial node of individuals it also structures the spatial pattern of daily life in terms of where people study, work, play, recreate, shop, dine and many more regularly recurring activities. It also often expresses one’s societal status and identity. The choice of dwelling is thus an important life choice, even more so because dwellings are relatively durable and people usually spend many years and sometimes decades in one particular home. One’s residential choice is thus often not made overnight. Relocating is done on the basis of residential preferences that are continuously subject to change. These residential preferences are the topic of this thesis. Researchers in the social sciences have long sought to study what preferences people have, and equally important, which factors determine those preferences. It is now increasingly accepted that the traditional explanatory factors of, for example, household composition, income, and educational attainment are not adequate anymore to explain residential preferences (e.g., Clapham, 2005). Various other concepts have been introduced as explanatory factors, such as lifestyles and values, to various degrees of success. This thesis continues with this approach and seeks to investigate the importance and meaning that occupational group has for residential preferences by comparing workers in the creative sector with those in the high-tech sector. These two sectors are both growing and increasingly important in developed economies around the world in the twenty-first century, such as the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area (MRA) and Hong Kong, which are the two urban regions that I study in this thesis. This thesis is an international comparative case-study research in which the residential preferences of those in the creative sector and high-tech sector in both regions are compared in order to show what the influence of occupational group, other individual-level factors, and the urban context is on those housing preferences. It builds on the Higher Education Location Preferences (HELP) project carried out recently at the UvA and VU. Research questions The two main research questions are as follows: how do the stated residential preferences of workers in the creative and high-tech sectors in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area and Hong Kong differ and what is the influence of individual factors and