Residential mobility of suburban households under the unforeseen impacts of large-scale projects in Istanbul

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the determinants of residential mobility in the event of unforeseen effects of new developments referring to household vulnerability. Each household has experienced mobility according to its own assessment of housing and residential environment. Generally speaking, this sort of mobility is the result of a mismatch between a household's current residence and their expected living environment. Fluctuations in land value changes and neighbourhood rezoning among many consequences of new residential developments lead to forced mobility in the neighbourhood. Göktürk, one of the most important peripheral residential districts in Istanbul's northern outskirts, is surrounded by ongoing developments as well as the presence of informal settlements with expanding gated communities. Therefore, in this study, the socio-demographic characteristics of households, as well as their housing status and environment, are applied to determine the probability of household vulnerability. This study is based on primary data, which was collected directly from a designed survey of 210 households in this neighborhood. Furthermore, Binary Logit Regression is used to identify the vulnerability of households exposed to forced mobility. According to the findings of the defined models, the location, households' dimensions, middle and low income groups, and insurance ration are significant predictor variables in residential mobility. Another finding of this study is that the probability of vulnerability is assigned to each household in the event of unforeseen effects of large-scale projects. This study contributes to addressing the issue of prospective mobility of households in a peripheral district of Istanbul Metropolitan City by taking into account the probability of their vulnerability.