Selective migration in Swedish distressed neighbourhoods: can area‐based urban policies counteract segregation processes?

Abstract

Like many other Western European governments, the Swedish government has launched an area-based urban policy in order to solve the problems of the distressed neighbourhoods in the largest cities. However, in the current policy it is not clear whether the primary aim is to address the problems of individuals, or if the aim is to change the market position of the distressed areas. The intervention might be successful in terms of assisting residents in finding jobs and better education, but that might not improve the general position of the areas targeted, since people who make a socio-economic career very often move out of the areas, to be replaced by poorer and less well-established residents. By drawing upon a comprehensive and unique set of data the paper analyses the issues of residential mobility and selective migration, with special focus on distressed neighbourhoods in the Stockholm region. The results clearly indicate that the migration flows of these neighbourhoods are indeed selective. The people who move in are more likely to be unemployed and dependent on social benefits and have on average lower incomes than those who move out and those who remain in the neighbourhoods. This simultaneous outflow of relatively well-off residents and inflow of weaker and more marginalised groups has the effect of reproducing the distressed character of the neighbourhoods.

Neighbourhood Choice and Neighbourhood Reproduction

“…We make neighbourhoods operational using the Swedish SAMS (Small Area Market Statistics) areas. These have been used to approximate neighbourhoods in previous studies using the same GeoSweden database (for example Andersson and Bråmå, 2004;Galster et al, 2008). We have excluded all SAMS (herein referred to as neighbourhoods) from the choice set of neighbourhoods with a population of less than 50 inhabitants (mostly commercial and industrial areas).…”

“…Neighbourhood characteristics are thus reproduced (see e.g. Friedrichs, 1991;Andersson and Bråmå, 2004 for studies on the reproduction of poverty neighbourhoods). Bailey and Livingstone (2007) have shown that the primary drivers of vacancy rates are demographic mix and housing stock characteristics (see also van Ham and Clark, 2009).…”

“…Neighbourhoods dominated by younger age groups, single adults, and with a high proportion of dwellings in the rental sectors are likely to have the highest turnover rates. Such neighbourhoods are also associated with lower income groups and tend to have higher proportions of non-native residents (Andersson and Bråmå 2004;van Ham and Clark 2009).…”

Notorious Places: Image, Reputation, Stigma. The Role of Newspapers in Area Reputations for Social Housing Estates

“…Such mobility can form part of a 'spiral of decline', wherein higher turnover leads to dwelling vacancies and a further decline in a neighbourhood's reputation (Prak & Priemus, 1986). High turnover, and especially selective migration, can be both a signal of, and a mechanism for, low attractiveness and a bad reputation (Andersson & Brama, 2004).…”

How Spatial Segregation Changes over Time: Sorting Out the Sorting Processes

“…Andersson and Bråmå (2004) consider status change and selective migration, finding that the latter reinforces existing patterns of segregation as expected. Crucially, however, their work does not consider the absolute scale of the impact of migration flows on segregation.…”