Public policy and residential mobility in Dutch cities.

It seems clear that it is no longer sufficient to study mobility in and of itself: it is important to understand the dynamics of mobility in the wider context of the urban structure and the context of local and national policy. The research in this paper offers further evidence in support of this approach. The research indicates that while the contextual effects of differing housing composition are relevant to the explanation of variation in mobility rates, most of the explanation (beyond that offered by demographic variables) is related to government policy in the housing market. The choices which are made by municipalities or the national government (growth centers, renewal subsidies) with respect to the type of dwelling stock which is constructed (owner/renter, subsidized/private) is of considerable significance to an individual household's possibility of adjusting its housing consumption. The choice by a municipality of a certain approach to the relative proportions of the housing stock in the private owner, private renter and subsidized sections is not new. But whether the composition of the newly built stock is of greater importance than the standing stock was not clear. The basic evidence from the study emphasizes that the considerable variation in aggregate (internal) mobility rates (from .01 for Emmen to .11 for Groningen) is largely explained by demographic characteristics of the city. But both the proportion of subsidized new units and the existence of renewal subsidies offer significant additional explanatory contributions.