Distinguishing city and suburban movers: evidence from the American Housing Survey

A significant amount of research has concentrated on the process of urban decentralization. Resulting patterns of urban development have far-reaching effects on land use, transportation, regional fiscal structure, public services and facilities, economic development, and social equity. Because planning processes are being developed to attempt to revitalize the urban core, it is important to know which households may be deciding to relocate to the central cities and why. A discriminant analysis is used to explore the similarities and differences among movers to central cities and suburban locations drawn from metropolitan samples of the 1989 through 1991 American Housing Surveys. The analysis compares the reasons for relocation, demographic differences, and metropolitan characteristics between central-city-to-suburb movers and suburb-to-central-city movers. The results indicate that these two groups are very similar in some respects and that some metropolitan-area characteristics may play a role in urban residential decentralization patterns.