STATUS QUALITY AND THE OTHER TRADE OFF t

Elements of a New Urban Residential Location Theory The plausibility of the housing situationsshown in Figure 1 suggests the possible re-wards to be gained from a systematic analy-sis of

The Donald Robertson Memorial Prizewinner 2000

Status, Quality and the Other Trade-off: Towards

a New Theory of Urban Residential Location

Hoang Huu Phe and Patrick Wakely

[Paper ® rst received, April 1998; in ® nal form, November 1998]

Summary The existing models of residential location are facing dif® culties in explaining new trends in urban developm ent such as gentri® cation and abandonmen t The mainstream approach which stresses the bid-rent formulations and the access/space trade-off seems to be at variance with the current reality of dispersal of both industry and housing in modern cities In this paper,

it is proposed that the focus on the city centre(s) and distance(s) from it (or them) should be shifted to two other categories of parameter: housing status and dwelling quality A model of interaction between these parameters can be used not only to describe but also to predict various types of residential development in different urban contexts The components of a new theory of residential location are proposed.

1 Urban Residential Location: Theories

and Realities

Ever since von ThuÈnen (1826/1968) gave his

version of the concentric city-region,

geogra-phers, urban economists and planners have

been working on theories of city structure

that can both explain and predict the ways in

which cities are formed and have evolved

Full accounts of these efforts have been

given by Hallett (1978), Hudson and Rhind

(1980), Maclennan (1982), Kivell (1993) and

Balchin et al (1995) As housing makes up

the major part of the land of cities, the

theories of city structure are, to a large

ex-tent, about residential location In a broad

sense, the theories of residential location fall

into two main groups: the market approach

and the non-market approach

The market approach is championed by

the urban economists, although it has itsorigins in the sociological observations of theChicago School in the 1920s (Maclennan,1982) Three main theories are used toexplain private-sector housing location:travel-cost minimisation; the travel-cost/housing-cost trade-off; and maximum hous-ing expenditure A detailed summary of these

theories is given in Balchin et al (1995) Of

the three theories, the second is the mostwidely accepted and, for this reason, hasbecome the most developed theory of resi-dential location It basically states that, given

an opportunity, a perfect mobile householdwould move to a plot where it can satisfy itsspatial requirements while paying acceptabletransport costs; that is, to make the access/

Hoang Huu Phe and Patrick Wakely are in the Development Planning Unit, University College London, 9 Endsleigh Gardens, London WC1H 0ED, UK Fax: 1 44-171-387-4541 Email: phebinh@cix.co.u k (or phehoang@hotmail com) and p.wakely@ucl.a c.uk.

0042-0980 Print/1360-063X On-line/00/01000 7-29Ó 2000 The Editors of Urban Studies

HOANG HUU PHE AND PATRICK WAKE LY8

space trade-off in the way proposed by Hurd

(1903), Isard (1956), Alonso (1964), Muth

(1969), Evans (1973), Romanos (1976) and

Thrall (1987) Although reservations have

been expressed, even in its early days (Firey,

1947), the theory’ s success in replicating

em-pirical regularities in Western cities has made

it a preferred analytical tool (Basset and Short,

1980) It is now ª the dominant paradigm of

urban economic researchº (Maclennan, 1982,

p 7) and, as recently as in 1989, an attempt

was made to extend it into a normative theory

(Fujita, 1989)

The non-market approach has a

substan-tially longer history than the ® rst It dates back

to the writings of the classical thinkers such

as Plato and Aristotle (Roll, 1990) Basically

this approach analyses the residential

distri-bution and city structure in terms of social

groups inhabiting urban areas, with some

groups taking advantage or control over

oth-ers In its modern form, the

non-market approach is principally represented by

sociologists, geographers and political

scien-tists (Rex, 1968; Pahl, 1975; Harvey, 1973;

Smith, 1987) Its strongest points tend to

critique the market-based theories that are

characterised by their ahistorical outlook

They point out that instead of resulting from

market competition, land and house priceÐ

and, by extension, residential location

pat-ternsÐ are in fact strongly in¯ uenced, indeed

manipulated, by landed capital through

mo-nopolistic rent (Harvey, 1973; Smith, 1987)

If disagreement between the two

ap-proaches largely concerns their theoretical

underpinning s, their application is facing no

less serious a challenge Both market and

non-market approaches have shown

consider-able discrepancies when applied to real-life

situations

Among the phenom ena that the market

approach fails to explain, gentri® cation is a

very telling example The trade-off theory

maintains that the rich have a natural

propen-sity to live in large properties in the suburbs,

where the land is cheap and the environment

is good, because they can afford the transport

costs The poor live in the inner city because

they cannot pay for high transport costs

Despite a heavy degree of simpli® cation, thiswas more or less accepted until the 1970s and1980s, when the rich moved into derelict areas

in the inner city, renovated them and stayed,

in a widespread phenomenon later called tri® cation (Hamnett and Williams, 1980) Nosatisfactory explanation was offered withoutthe risk of contradicting the fundamental as-sumptions of the access/space trade-off theory.Similarly, the increasing incidence of aban-donment in housing estates of largely decentphysical quality and low rent, implying thedispersal of job and residenceÐ in otherwords, the everyday realities in modern cit-iesÐ also seems to be at variance with theaccess/space trade-off theory, which stresses

gen-a purely economic, rgen-ationgen-al gen-and mechgen-anisticbehaviour of the residents

It was left to the non-market urban theorists

to deal with the new discrepancies, such asSmith’ s rent-gap theory for gentri® cation(Smith, 1987), and a series of post-m oderninterpretations of the new urban realities (Har-vey, 1991; Soja, 1996; Dear and Flusty, 1998).Although some of these theoretical lines aremore successful in offering explanations forthe new urban phenomena, the non-marketapproach’ s underlying point about monopolis-tic rent has never really been supported byempirical data (Kivell, 1993) Being absorbed

by the role of capital, proponents of thisapproach have a tendency to ignore somepowerful impetuses for residential location,such as life-cycles, personal preferences andtaste

A satisfactory theory of residential locationand city structure thus still remains elusive or,

as Dear and Flusty (1998) commented, a

`scarce commodity’ There is a paradox in theseemingly wide acceptance that, despite alltheir problems, the older and more simpleresidential location theories are probably more

workable after all (Balchin et al., 1995) At the

same time, this is also a clear recognition ofthe limitations of existing theories Somereasons for this can be identi® ed

For the market approach, perhaps thebiggest obstacle that prevents it from achiev-ing not only a close description, but also asatisfactory explanation of residential loca-

tion, is the excessive reliance on physical,

measurable variables, the meanings of which

could undergo fundamental changes during

different historical times The role of the city

centre and the distance to it is the clearest

example It is now a truism that the centre of

even the monocentric city, if it exists at all, no

longer plays the overwhelmingly important

role assigned to it as the only concentration of

employment, nor does the distance from it act

as the de® ning constraint In many countries

of the West, some downtown areas could be

transformed from lively shopping cores into

deserted blocks if the out-of-town shopping

mall developers had their way With the new

trends of dispersal, the new industrial and

of® ce developments (especially the high-tech

ones) are no longer dependent on distanceÐ

either to the marketplace or to sources of

material supplyÐ for their survival, as a result

of modern means of mass transit and air

transport, telecommunications and computer

networking

The non-market approach does not suffer

such an obvious obsolescence, mainly

be-cause it is based either on human

relation-ships or on relatively stable notions such as

the government and the planning

organisa-tions, etc Their underlying concepts, such as

monopolistic rent and the working of

institu-tions, however, are appealing but dif® cult to

prove and quantify in reality Recognising

that the neo-classical models achieved

im-portant results in replicating patterns of

resi-dential location, they call for a combined

theory that can incorporate both the use value

and the exchange value aspects of residential

locations But so far no visible progress in this

direction has been recorded (Kivell, 1993)

It should be noted that most of the existing

theories of residential location are the direct

results of observations of Western cities,

es-pecially in the US, within a particular

histori-cal time (the ® rst half of the 20th century)

There were attempts to create speci® c

theo-ries of city structure in different geographical

regions such as east Asia (Rimmer, 1991; Sit

and Yang, 1997), south-east Asia (McGee,

1991) and eastern Europe (French and

Hamil-ton, 1979; Szeleny, 1983), but these efforts

are being challenged by the unstoppable cess of globalisation According to the concept

pro-of global urban hierarchy (Hall, 1984; man, 1995; Sassen, 1995), the structure of acity depends on its position in the global urbannetwork On the other hand, the enormousfootloose capital circulating around the worldcan change any city almost overnight, andcities on its circuit may appear more similar toeach other than to the other cities in the samecountry or region (a similar phenomenon wasobserved much earlier, during the peak of thecolonial era (see Clark, 1996) Thus the tra-ditional division of identity between cities indeveloped countries and those in developingcountries may not be as clear-cut as in the past.Therefore, it is no surprise that there areserious dif® culties in trying to apply the exist-ing theories, based largely on historical data, tourban centres that are governed by completelynew and different processes

Fried-Thus the need for a new theory is evident In seeking to overcome the inherentdif® culties mentioned above, this paper is anattempt to reconcile the differences betweenthe market and non-market approaches, byadopting a more ¯ exible line of reasoning Itbuilds mainly on the social aspects of residen-tial location, which are believed to be capable

self-of self-offering a more appropriate explanation,while acknowledging the need to incorporatethe methods and techniques that make iteasier to quantify and describe patterns ofurban residential location

It should be noted that although the casestudy refers to Hanoi, because of access tosuitable data, the proposition is by no meanscon® ned to cities in developing countries

2 A New Look at the Dynam ics of Urban Residential Areas

There are reasons to believe that in many realurban contexts, the logic underlying decisions

in residential location is quite different fromthe assumptions of the access/space trade-offmodel Some of these reasons are new, butmost others are simply ignored because they

do not ® t the restrictive assumptions of thetrade-off models

HOANG HUU PHE AND PATRICK WAKE LY10

First, in the households’ decision-making

process relating to residential location, a

signi® cant role is attached to social status

(Maclennan, 1982), especially in societies

with a strong strati® ed structure It can be

argued that social strati® cation may stem from

any form of differentiation (power, wealth,

knowledge, culture, etc.) and can take

differ-ent forms of expression, some of the most

important of which being the home and its

location (Lawrence, 1987; Cooper, 1972)

Secondly, physical distance has become

less and less important with the dispersal of

employment centres and increased personal

mobility The information revolution of

re-cent decades, with its computer networking

and the internet, is fast shrinking the

domi-nance of physical distance (Harvey, 1991;

Dear and Flusty, 1998)

Thirdly, the demand for living space is

known to be adjustable within very wide

margins (Rapoport, 1977) and, in many

in-stancesÐ especially in the more traditional

societies of developing countriesÐ it is often

sacri® ced for other needs, such as the desire

for an extended family to live together, or the

different forms of consumption (often

con-spicuous), including those of culture and

tra-ditions

Fourthly, the historically and culturally

conditioned perception of the signi® cance of

the place (Bachelard, 1958; Tuan, 1961) is

playing a leading role in decision-making

processes The belief that a place has more

than the observed physical properties is

widely recognised and dates back to very

early (even prehistoric) practices of ® nding

appropriate locations for settlements, in

which cosmological, religious prescriptions

and health concerns are merged into some

sort of `divine set of rules’

In many cultures with strong links with

tradition, such as those in many developing

countries, these factors and sentiments

can-not be simply ignored in explaining

residen-tial location behaviour On the other hand, in

developed countries, new trends in urban

lifestyles have emerged with strong

environ-mental and spiritual contents (Lawrence,

1998), which have started to challenge the

very economistic rationality on which themainstream residential location theory isbased

2.1 The Housing Status/Dwelling Quality Relationship

Taking into account this apparent move wards a more diverse vision of urban life, thedynamics of change in the residential areas

to-of cities can be conceptualised as consisting

of a simultaneous shift along two sions; one accommodates historical transfor-mations, whilst the other captures therelatively permanent character of the physi-cal environment These are housing statusand dwelling quality

dimen-Housing status is a measure of the socialdesirability attached to housing in a particu-lar locality It can represent wealth, culture,religion, environmental quality, etc., depend-ing on the current value system of a givensociety and, as such, it is closely related toconcrete historical conditionsÐ i.e the tem-poral dimension The measurement of statuscan be carried out, either through the esti-mation of a proxy, by a ranking process (withthe use of focus groups, for instance) or byestimating the `implicit’ prices of attributesrelated to status using different regressiontechniques, such as hedonic analysis(Griliches, 1971; Rosen, 1974; Megbolugbe,1986) In any case, with the computingmeans and methods that are now available,the quanti® cation of status is no more com-plex than the de® nition of such an abstractquantity as `a unit of housing service’ in theaccess/space trade-off model

Dwelling quality includes physical,measurable characteristics such as ¯ oor area,number of bathrooms, number of stories, etc

To these can be added indicators of productquality, such as durability, compatibility with

a given construction technology, etc Veryoften these characteristics, separated fromtheir status content, make up the bulk ofhousing condition statistics It can be arguedthat the very neutrality of dwelling qualitymeasurements has created part of the seem-ing paradox of the simultaneous presence of

both housing shortage and ¯ oor space

redun-dancy in many market economies This

sug-gests that many housing units are rendered

un® t for even being classi® ed as housing

because they lack acceptable attributes of

social status

Since the physical standards of housing

differ substantially from locality to locality and,

likewise, the subjective criteria of housing

status also differ considerably from society

to society, in any particular urban context, an

identi® able characteristic relationship of the

two components may be found As these two

componentsÐ dwelling quality and housing

statusÐ can be either compatible or

antagon-istic to each other, a simple graphic

represen-tation of their interaction using satisfactory

methods of measurement can be shown as

capable of describing nearly all possible

types of housing in almost any society

In a very simple form, the idea behind a

new theoretical model of housing dynamics

can be illustrated by a series of graphs

(Fig-ure 1) In these graphs, the O± DQ axis

repre-sents dwelling quality, while the O± HS axis

represents housing status At points on the

O± HS axis, there is a threshold, or an

accept-able dwelling quality level, below which

housing can be classi® ed as sub-standard or

undesirable The dotted line, connecting

these points and forming an angle a with

O± HS, is the threshold line between

desir-able and undesirdesir-able housing For any

par-ticular socioeconom ic setting, this line will

have a unique position, but for simplicity of

comparison, the line is drawn in its general

position Examples A±F shown in Figure 1

only re¯ ect some of the most familiar

situa-tions, and it is clear that the model is capable

of depicting many more possibilities It is

postulated that in real life the threshold line

would be a more complex curve (Figure 2),

than a straight line

The hypothesis can be expanded, leading

to some interesting spatial consequences of

quality±status relationships In Figure 3, a

hypothetical city is shown with three status

poles The HS± DQ relationship as shown in

Figure 4 is expressed three-dimensionally,

where the threshold lines for each of the

three poles together form a `threshold face’ , above which housing units can be per-ceived as `desirable’ , and below as

sur-`undesirable’ Effectively, this surface vides any city into two parts: a `dual city’expressed in spatial, three-dimensionalterms It is interesting that, while the com-plex relationships can be formalised mathe-matically, their graphical representationseems to have an intuitive appeal

di-3 Elements of a New Urban Residential Location Theory

The plausibility of the housing situationsshown in Figure 1 suggests the possible re-wards to be gained from a systematic analy-sis of the principles behind the formation andprobable trends of the residential structure ofcities, on the grounds of the relationshipbetween housing status and dwelling quality.The preliminary formulation of a new theory

of urban residential location, the quality±status theory, is proposed below

The residential location patterns of mostcities conform to a polar structure, in whichone or several poles represent the highestpoints of certain kinds of social status, recog-nised by a given proportion of the popu-lation The parameters of social statusembrace such qualitatively distinctive no-tions such as wealth, political power, busi-ness, culture, ethnicity, education, etc Thedistribution of social groups is based on thefollowing principles:

(1) Residential areas in cities make uplargely continuous and overlapping ringsaround the status pole or poles The ringpattern is the outcome of a trade-offbetween that desirable status and an ac-ceptable level of dwelling quality (ex-plained below)

(2) House value for any social groupconsists of two components: housing

status (HS) and dwelling quality (DQ).

Housing status is a combination ofattributes, often non-physical, that dis-tinguish different levels of housingdesirability, or status, which are accepted

HOANG HUU PHE AND PATRICK WAKE LY12

Figure 1 Housing status (HS) and dwelling quality (DQ) in different social contexts: A Housing in a

society that values social status more than the physical qualitiesÐ for example, in primitive settlements,where houses are located according to cosmological prescriptions and tribal hierarchy, where the most

sought-after dwellings may not be the ones with the highest physical quality B Housing in a culture which

does not of® cially recognise differences in social status Dwellings may have medium to high quality butalmost no distinction in statusÐ for example, on public housing estates in (former) socialist countries, built

in locations which are `rational’ in physical terms, but devoid of social meaning The cluster is not

necessarily of low-value on O± HS C Two types of housing sharing the same high-status locationÐ for

example, those located under the threshold line, which are the slums and squatters, and those located above

the threshold line, which are the dwellings of the gentri® ers D Housing in a `normal’ capitalist society,

with dwelling quality and housing status largely compatible with each otherÐ i.e lower-status housinghas correspondingly lower dwelling quality, and high status, higher quality This type of housing alignment

implies strong socio-spatial segregation in the city structure E Housing stock in a supposedly `classless’

society, which has been inherited from a status-conscious society Dwelling quality is varied, but all thehouses share the same level of statusÐ for example, old quarters of the former socialist cities or housing

vacated by a deposed regime which is then inhabited by residents with different values F Housing units

of roughly the same standard but differing considerably in social statusÐ for example, public housingprojects in capitalist societies built to the same physical standard, but located in areas with different status

levels, which makes essentially similar housing units very different in their desirability

Figure 2 The smoothed threshold line,

represent-ing integrated thresholds of dwellrepresent-ing quality and

status which is steep at the lower dwelling quality

and housing status levels and more gradual, almost

¯ at, at the higher end of the dwelling quality and

housing status Dwellings located below this line

would be perceived as ranging from undesirable

down to slums and shanties HP is the minimum

quality level for a given level of status

i.e by their use value, while houses atthe higher price levels are characterisedmore by the attributes that make themcommodities and favourable invest-mentsÐ i.e by their exchange value

On the surface, there seems to be a clearparallel between this model and the access/space trade-off model Indeed, both re¯ ectthe common concentric ring pattern of resi-dential location in cities The differences,however, are substantial

First, while the access/space trade-offmodel puts the physical centre at the focus ofimportance, the new model looks at the fac-tors of status which make that centre import-ant These, as mentioned before, could bewealth, political power, employment, culture,ethnicity, education, etc It is implied that ifthose factors are changing or shifting, thephysical centre cannot stay where it is, with-out losing its role Thus in the quality±statustheory, there is nothing strange, for example,

in the simultaneous movement out to thesuburbs and back to the centres: differentgroups are simply attracted to different statuspoles As the poles shift, following (or sig-nalling) transitions in society at large, theychange the spatial boundaries between desir-able and undesirable zones Thus, some tra-ditionally desirable housing areas maybecome less desirable, even slums, prompt-ing the ¯ ight of the middle class, and later ofother groups, ultimately leading to abandon-ment In the same way, it is also easy to seehow some ordinary dwellings, or areas, be-come fashionable (see Figure 6) stimulatingchanges that are then magni® ed by the com-mercial interests of developers Indeed, it isnot uncommon for developers (private orinstitutional) to initiate such change in theinterests of uplifting the market

Secondly, in the access/space trade-offmodel, the distance to the centre is an unam-biguous, physical quantity (provided the ur-ban boundaries are clear-cut, which theyoften are not) In the quality±status model,the housing status axis begins from where thestatus in question is lowest This point is notnecessarily located at the edge of

by certain social groups, sometimes

irre-spective of the actual physical state of

the dwelling Dwelling quality embodies

the physical, measurable elements that

constitute the basis for the normal use of

a dwelling

(3) At any level of housing status, there

exists an acceptable level of dwelling

quality, or point, below which houses are

considered as sub-standard The locus of

these points forms a line called the

dwelling quality threshold (Figure 5)

This threshold divides the whole housing

stock in question into two zones: the

zone above the threshold is called

`desir-able’ ; the zone below it is called

`unde-sirable’ Each housing situation (of a

country or city) has a uniquely

character-istic quality threshold, that can be

com-pared with others

(4) At the lower price levels, dwelling

qual-ity is the dominating component, while

at the higher price levels, housing status

predominates With a certain degree of

simpli® cation, it can be said that housing

units at the lower price levels are mainly

characterised by their utility as shelterÐ

HOANG HUU PHE AND PATRICK WAKE LY14

Figure 3 Possible application of the model for mapping a multi-polar city.

the city, it is where the new sphere of

in¯ uence of another pole begins (with the

possibility of some overlaps) It can be

de® ned by different means: the price of a

particular type of housing stock, occupation

density, the presence of certain social works, etc This rather abstract distance can

net-be calibrated in terms of physical distance inrelation to the real-life delineation of theboundaries

Figure 4 Housing status and dwelling quality, a hypothetical model including different levels of status.

At the lower-quality level, a small change in status corresponds to a much larger change in dwelling quality

At a higher level, the changes in dwelling quality and status are reversed At the highest-quality level, thechanges in dwelling quality become negligible or impossible, while status can be changed presumably only

by moving or, in extreme cases, by creating new types of status Houses in these groups have thetheoretically highest-possible physical qualityÐ i.e it is impossible further to improve the quality in arational way The status, however, can be added or createdÐ for example, by being associated with special

events or personalities

Figure 5 Housing status and dwelling quality.

Following the logic of the quality±status

theory, it can be seen that if every group is

equally attracted to employment in the CBD,

the two models would indeed seem very

similar: status would be measured by the

closeness to central-city employment, so that

the physical distance from the centre would

coincide with the status distance Thus, it can

be argued that there is indeed a relationshipbetween the access/space trade-off modeland the quality±status model, with the formerbeing a special case of the latter: that is,when employment in the city centre is as-sumed to have the highest desirability foreveryone, and wealth is the only indication

of status Instead of the static character of the

HOANG HUU PHE AND PATRICK WAKE LY16

Figure 6 The shift of a status pole and changes in standing of different types of housing: if the pole

NL shifts to N’ L’ , the boundaries of desirable and undesirable zones also change In the case shown, R1 remains within the undesirable zone; R2, however, moves from desirable to undesirable Only the position of R3 improves considerablyÐ it remains ® rmly within the desirable zone while becoming

much closer to the pole

access/space trade-off model (Knox, 1994),

the quality±status model, through its polar

mechanism, can transmit societal changes,

which are making cities very different places

compared with themselves a few decades

ago, into the everyday urban scene

4 Implications of the Proposed Theory

4.1 The Other Trade-offs

The access/space trade-off theory is

con-strained by quite restrictive assumptions

about the market, behaviour, preferences and

taste (Maclennan, 1982) For a considerable

part of the urban population, including those

at the lower end of the housing market,

where the burden of the transport costs is

modi® ed by public facilities and travel time

is not really the biggest obstacle, there must

be other types of trade-off that can be made

Theoretically, at any dwelling quality level

there is an unlimited range of possibilities of

housing status In reality, however, they are

accompanied by serious conditionalities

Ba-sically, in making decisions about their

hous-ing, any household can have two types of

Scenario 1 A housing unit is on the left of the threshold line (point A in Figure 7) In

this case, although the status of the unit islow, it nevertheless belongs to the `desir-able’ zone

Scenario 2 A housing unit is on the right

of the threshold line (point B in Figure 7).

In this case, despite the fact that its tial status may be higher (located nearer tothe status pole) this housing unit belongs

poten-to the `undesirable’ zone

It can be seen that, rather than being

be-Figure 7 Trade-off with ® xed dwelling quality (DQ) level.

tween transport costs and housing

expendi-ture as the access/space theory says, in this

case the trade-off is between the desired

housing status and a socially acceptable level

of dwelling quality The latter, a household’ s

position vis-aÁ-vis the threshold line, can be

provisionally called `standing’ A household

thus can make a trade-off between: staying in

A, which offers a desirable standing (being

above the threshold line) but low general

status (located far from the status pole); and

staying in B, which is below the threshold

line (undesirable standing) but within a

high-status area (nearer the high-status pole) The

trade-off, thus, is essentially social, rather than

economic, although the house price plays an

important role: it represents the socially

per-ceived degree of desirability

With the same level of dwelling quality

being kept, the movement into a

higher-status area generally leads to a higher house

price and a lower level of desirability, and

vice versa Translated into the real world,

Scenario 1 (point A, Figure 7) is common for

many housing units that are located in the

lower-status parts of the city Comparatively,

their not-too-high level of physical quality is

acceptable, even desirable locally Scenario 2

(point B, Figure 7) is common for housing

units in slums located in high-status parts of

the city Although in absolute terms their

physical quality level may not be very low,they are nevertheless seen (by those abovethe threshold) as unacceptable, undesirable

In this case, the quality±status model fers an explanation contrary to that of theaccess/space trade-off model for inner-cityslums, which says that the majority of theslum-dwellers are forced to live next to (orwithin) high-status areas (city centre) be-cause they cannot afford to pay the cost oftransport In fact, in making decision to live

of-in of-inner-city slums, the poor gaof-in of-in at leasttwo additional ways: through access tosources of income from the provision ofservices which are in demand in high-statusareas; and, through access to more publicservices, greater stimulus and perhaps a moredesirable lifestyle, especially for the youngunder a heavy peer-group pressure The pricethat they pay is their low standing, deep inthe undesirable zone

The household in A (Figure 7) can have

many options, while keeping itself abovethreshold It can stay put, or move a little

along both dimensions, DQ and HS, and still

be within the desirable zone It can also

move along A-B, and then B-R In the real

world, this implies moving location and thenimproving the dwelling Alternatively it can

move directly to R In the real world, this is

a direct high status move, for which the

HOANG HUU PHE AND PATRICK WAKE LY18

household has to pay for a more expensive

house to be able to stay in the desirable zone

If high-income residents from other af¯ uent

areas move to B for the purpose of eventually

proceeding to R, the process is called

gen-tri® cation

By contrast, for the household in B, the

options are more limited It can move left,

keeping the same quality level while hoping

to enter the desirable zone (i.e by moving

along BA towards AÐ a rare occurrence,

of-ten partly related to abandonment ) It can

move right, into areas nearer to the status

pole, where there may be higher chances for

the gains outlined above, but locationally

well into the undesirable zone When this

balancing can no longer be justi® edÐ that is,

for instance, when the increase in social and

environmental degradation outweighs the

gainsÐ abandonment happens Alternatively,

the household can stay put and hope that it

will be able eventually to improve the

physi-cal quality of its dwelling (moving along

B± R) Improving the physical quality of poor

housing is normally called upgrading and

although the dwelling quality (DQ) may

in-crease considerably, in practice it is rarely

enough to get it above the threshold line, in

this way differing from the process of

gen-tri® cation, not only in terms of motivation

but also in terms of physical quality

As the status level increases, the range ofpossibilities to stay in the acceptable zone

gradually decreases, until it reaches point N

(the lower limit for highest-value housing),where acceptable dwelling quality falls

within very narrow margins (MN) This

means that at the top of the market, housesdiffer little from each other in terms ofdwelling quality

The trade-off with predetermined level of status Some households make decisions

about their residential location with a termined level of status in mind In devel-oped countries, for instance, many familieslooking for a good local school for theirchildren belong to this category In develop-ing countries, better off rural±urban migrantsoften do so, for the purpose of being seen asrespectable in the eyes of their peers Forthese people, there are two seeminglystraightforward and unambiguous choices:

prede-Scenario 1 A household has to spend

more money for the housing unit, to be in

the desirable zone (point A in Figure 8) Scenario 2: A household can spend less

money and stay in the undesirable zone

(point B in Figure 8).

Thus, the trade-off is between housing

ex-Figure 8 Trade-off with predetermined level of housing status (HS).

penditure and social acceptability If the

status level is predetermined, no matter how

much one wishes, one cannot spend less

money to pay for a higher level of

accept-ability (except, perhaps, in cases of

corrup-tion or favouritism in selling or letting public

accommodation) In the long term, the

household in Scenario 2 (point B, Figure 8)

can wait for its ® nance to improve, then start

to improve the quality of its house This is

the `slums of hope’ where the low-income

residents are optimistic that their low-quality

housing in a high-status area will eventually

be upgraded

Through the exploration of such examples,

it seems that the proposed quality±status

the-ory is able to describe satisfactorily the

intri-cate relationships between status, quality and

value It has been shown that if the

residen-tial location decision is a trade-off, then this

trade-off is essentially social rather than

economic, and complex rather than

mecha-nistic People with fewer resources are less

capable of making choices because, in

mar-ket economies, the possibilities of trade-off

available to them are limited (type B in

Sce-nario 2 (Figure 7) or type B in SceSce-nario 2

(Figure 8) It goes without saying that, for

the rich, the choices are much more

abun-dant However, if each group has its own

threshold line, then the trade-offs will not be

easy to escape even for the rich, albeit at

quite different quality levels

An important point is that the proposed

quality±status theory makes no distinction

between cities in the developed world and

those in developing countries The

differ-ences are in the concrete shape of desirable

and undesirable zones, as well as in the real

costs of movements within each of the zones

or across the threshold line The relative

position of the zones and the principles

gov-erning their interaction remain the same

4.2 The Spatial Implications

Description One of the reasons why the

existing residential location models are

at-tractive is that they have a strong descriptive

power However, certain patterns, well

served by one set of descriptive devices, can

be the result of very different processes andcan be described equally well by another set

of tools For example, the concentric ringstructure of cities was well known in manycultures where there was no bidding for theuse of the urban land, according to the his-torical evidence The two ancient types of

city in south-east Asia, the nagaras and the commanderies (Wheatley, 1983), which later

developed into bustling metropolitan areas,actually excluded the possibility of exchangethrough the market, while still having dis-tinctive ring-like structures In the ® rst in-stance, it is most likely that the rings werebased on religious hierarchy, and in the se-cond, many layers were originally neededand ordered for defence purposes

The quality±status model explains the ringstructure as the outcome of the trade-offbetween a desirable status and an acceptablelevel of dwelling quality: that is, the trade-offbetween the ideal and the acceptable Ap-plied to historical non-market urban centres,the model can still be valid, though with thehelp of some modi® cations If the peoplewho are today inhabiting the outer rings havechosen their current location because theydid not have suf® cient ® nancial means tomove closer to the status pole in moderncities, their predecessors could not do sobecause they lacked either feudal power orreligious authority Thus the type of politicalcurrency might be changed, but the essentialmechanism of balancing remains the same

Prediction Being adaptable by nature, the

quality±status theory can be used for ing different patterns of residential location.Instead of operating a set of geometricalparameters, it can include the analysis of thevalue systems of a given society in order tode® ne the status poles The distance betweenthese poles and the outer limits of their

predict-sphere of in¯ uence (the HS axis) can be

calibrated, as mentioned before, by takinginto account different indicators, such as den-sity of employment, house price, levels ofsocial connectedness, etc Because of the

speci® c relationship between HS and DQ,

HOANG HUU PHE AND PATRICK WAKE LY20

each of these two components can be

pre-dicted, based on knowledge of the other

Instead of the econom ic equilibrium

sought in conventional models, the outcome

of residential location decisions would be

dependent on the shape of a given city’ s

social structure

4.3 The Policy Implications

Apart from giving a new insight into the way

the housing market is operating in urban

areas, the quality±status theory can

contrib-ute to the on-going debate on the best way to

invest in new housing programmes as well as

in rehabilitation schemes Perhaps the most

obvious point of the model is that the

per-ceived status attached to housing, as opposed

to its physical quality, is what makes an area

desirable (or not) for its (potential) residents

And since the perceived status is essentially a

subjective construct, it can be changed with

proactive strategies It could be argued that

this point is not new to real estate

develop-ment and marketing industries After all, they

spend a lot of money to offer, and/or

manipu-late, precisely that perceived status, which is

re¯ ected in the familiar picture-postcard

im-ages of new developments displayed on

countless billboards and in the Sunday

news-papers

The analysis of the threshold of dwelling

quality can have an important role to play in

realistic, not bureaucratic, evaluation of

housing conditions The ability of the model

to pinpoint the critical point where housing

status components overtake the dwelling

quality components in housing value (in

Fig-ures 16 and 17 below) can be instrumental in

understanding changes in the overall

stan-dard of the housing stock, and in considering

appropriate forms of intervention, either to

enhance the ef® ciency of the housing market,

or to protect the low-income groups from

exploitative developers In developing

coun-tries, application of the theory can inform

decisions concerning a wide range of

hous-ing issues, from inner-city slum upgradhous-ing to

the incidence or likelihood of gentri® cation

and the most effective location of publichousing schemes

If an appropriate representation of HS and

DQ is achieved, the model can be a very

useful tool for decision-making For ple, suppose that it is agreed that the housing

exam-situation in Figure 1 (example D) is a

desir-able one, but the actual situation is more like

Figure 1 (example E), policy-makers can

eas-ily see where and how to act If the trends inchanges of the social structure of the city areknown, new forms of housing can be pro-jected even before they appear

5 The Case of Hanoi

5.1 Background

Hanoi as a capital city was founded in 1010,

by an edict of the Ly Thai To King (974±1028), who re-established the independentVietnamese kingdom after nearly a thousandyears under Chinese rule (111BC±939AD).Thus the conception of the ancient city(which at the beginning was named ThangLong, or Ascending Dragon) was a quitedeliberate political act, designed to establish

a command and control centre, in the modernjargon During its development, however, thecity has also become an important transporthub and a busy trading centre, thanks to itseasy accessibility by waterways, of which themost important is Red River Today, Hanoi is

a fast-growing metropolis, with the centralcity having a population of nearly 1 million,covering an area of about 40 sq km (Figure9) and expanding

After long and turbulent years of war andinef® cient management of the econom y,Vietnam’ s economic policy reform, whichwas introduced in 1986 under the name of

doi moi (renovation), averted an almost

im-minent economic collapse Subsequently, thecountry enjoyed a very high growth rateaveraging more than 8 per cent per annum,until the current ® nancial turmoil in south-east Asia

Thus, a new and unprecedented phase ofurban development began in the city, with asubstantial improvement to the transport in-