Quality of Urban Life and Intensification: Understanding Housing Choices, Trade-Offs, and the Role of Urban Amenities

Abstract

Many New World cities in New Zealand, Australia, and the Pacific Northwest have urban growth management policies and strategies in place to promote intensification as a way to avoid sprawl while continuing to absorb population growth. Enhancing the quality of urban life of residents has also become a fundamental component in the urban growth management strategies of many cities seeking to prioritise intensification. In spatial terms, fulfilling a directive for a compact city will require the intensification of town centres and existing neighbourhoods by increasing the availability of a variety of multi-unit, multi-use, and multi-storey attached housing typologies. It will also require social changes in terms of the lifestyle expectations and aspirations of residents. In order to understand the impetus for residents to buy into this mandate for intensification, it will be important to research the housing choices and aspirations of residents who are living in attached forms of housing and to investigate the role of the neighbourhood in their perceived quality of urban life. This thesis makes a contribution to housing and urban intensification research. The findings provide insights into two critical areas: firstly, higher density housing choices and the trade-offs residents make when deciding where to live; secondly, the significance of neighbourhood amenities in relation to neighbourhood satisfaction. In order to address the aims of this research, fifty-seven-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with residents who currently live in attached typologies across four established neighbourhoods in the case study city of Auckland, New Zealand. The interviewees were asked to define their neighbourhood, express what ‘quality of life’ and ‘quality of urban life’ meant to them, and to discuss their housing experiences, housing choices, and housing aspirations. Data was also gathered about their perceptions of density and intensification. They were asked to identify which neighbourhood amenities they used, how often, how they accessed them, and the role these amenities played in their neighbourhood satisfaction. Following a Constructivist Grounded Theory approach, the data was evaluated using Substantive Coding methods, conducted both manually and through NVivo, the qualitative data analysis software. The research concludes that if higher density living is to be embraced in established neighbourhoods, what must be understood is the role of urban amenities both within the neighbourhood, and within the wider city, in meeting the quality of urban life expectations of residents. The apparent risk of not considering urban amenities in this way is to misunderstand the nature of contemporary urban life and the effects of changing demographics and household structures on housing choices.