David McLennan

Understanding Neighbourhood Population Dynamics for Neighbourhood Effects Research: A Review of Recent Evidence and Data Source Developments

This chapter reviews what is known about patterns of residential mobility and selective migration, in order to provide a clearer understanding of these dynamics on which to build research on neighbourhood effects. Three findings of research on residential mobility and population turnover are discussed: The first one is that neighbourhood characteristics have a relatively weak influence on the desire to move, on moving intentions and on actual mobility. The second one is that general indicators of satisfaction with the neighbourhood appear to be more closely related to the desire to move and to moving intentions than indicators measuring specific aspects of the neighbourhood. And the third one is that neighbourhood change may be a stronger driver for moving intentions than current neighbourhood characteristics. The literature review concludes that residential mobility and selective migration are both heavily influenced by ageing and life-course events. It also concludes that neighbourhood context may be defined as much by flows as by static or cross-sectional characteristics. As a consequence, complex neighbourhood typologies can be constructed. Finally, the chapter concludes that responses to a given neighbourhood context may be more varied and subjective than previously assumed. It is suggested that neighbourhood characteristics themselves matter less than how individuals respond to them, and these responses are generally not very well understood using quantitative modelling.

Developing a spatial measure of exposure to socio-economic inequality in South Africa

It is well documented that South Africa has high levels of poverty, deprivation and income inequality and, additionally, high levels of violent crime and social unrest. Debates about the drivers of social problems such as violent crime have shifted internationally and locally from a focus on poverty to a focus on inequality. However, there is very little empirical evidence to quantify this relationship in South Africa due, in part, to a lack of suitable measures of socio-economic inequality and, in particular, spatial measures of inequality at a detailed geographical level. In the international literature, measures of small area-level spatial inequality have generally been expressed in terms of residential segregation. We use Massey and Dentons five dimensions of residential segregation as our starting point, and assess their appropriateness as measures of spatial socio-economic inequality for the South African context. Focusing on their dimensions of ‘exposure’ and ‘clustering’, we develop a measure of spatial inequality which, we argue, can be described as a geographical measure of the ‘lived experience of inequality’ in that it reflects peoples likely exposure to inequality as they go about their daily lives. Our final measure takes the form of a deprivation-adjusted local distance-weighted exposure index.