A systems perspective for residential preferences and dwellings: housing functions and their role in Swiss residential mobility

Abstract

Worldwide, there is an urgent imperative to provide a housing supply that is environmentally sustainable as well as acceptable and desirable for its users. A holistic and integrative understanding of the relationship between households' residential preferences and dwellings is needed to achieve this goal. This paper addresses this gap by conceptualizing and operationalizing housing as a system whose human and material behaviours are determined by its function. Following a qualitative literature review to identify what housing functions are and investigate their effects on the housing system, we explore the applicability of such functions in Swiss tenants' residential mobility. Results show that multiple functions co-exist in the housing realm, each of which determines various human (i.e. residential preferences) and material (i.e. dwelling forms) behaviours that vary according to given societal and environmental structural elements (e.g. geography, culture). We also observe that housing functions potentially provide the missing link between the determinants of tenants' residential mobility.

Tenants’ residential mobility in Switzerland: the role of housing functions

“…According to this definition, the housing system has been conceptualized as being embedded in and structured by a societal system comprising rules and resources (e.g. culture, legislation, financial capital) and an environmental system constituting the natural and technical environment (Binder, 2007;Giddens, 1984;Pagani & Binder, 2021). Encompassed within the environment and society are the human and material subsystems, which are in turn structured by e.g.…”

“…Encompassed within the environment and society are the human and material subsystems, which are in turn structured by e.g. households' residential biographies and dwellings' features, and manifest themselves in different residential preferences and dwelling forms, respectively (Pagani & Binder 2021). These manifestations, also called system's behaviours, are determined by the functions of the housing system.…”

“…Table 1 illustrates the nine housing functions identified by Pagani and Binder (2021). At the interface between residential preferences and dwelling forms, these functions are Pagani & Binder, 2021) Function Definition Shelter A refuge, a fortress where one can return to get rest, before going back out 'into the world'; the 'homely home' Security, privacy A private place mainly for the family's needs. The recreation preferably happens outside Permanence A place a person feels they belong or are rooted in Production, consumption A place that enables one to perform activities (like eating, laundering, companionship) Impermanence…”

“…The Swiss context offers a promising setting for the study of the relocation process; as in most other European countries, the mobility of Swiss households has been increasing in recent decades (Pattaroni et al, 2009), and tenants, who represent the largest share of Swiss occupants, are more mobile than owners (Clark, 2012;Coulter, 2013;Dieleman, 2001;Kwon & Beamish, 2013;Rossi, 1955). Pagani and Binder's (2021) research on housing functions and residential mobility is framed in the above-described context. Based on two exploratory group discussions with tenants in the Swiss cities of Lausanne and Zurich, the authors advanced a set of hypotheses regarding the determinants of the decisions to move and select a dwelling.…”

“…Greater attractiveness ratings result in higher satisfaction among households and lower residential relocations and vacancy rates (Lawrence, 2009). The recent work of Pagani and Binder (2021) extended this reflection one step further with the introduction of a systems perspective to housing studies. Housing is conceptualized as a system of human and material structures whose behaviour (i.e.…”