Deciding where to live: case study of cohousing-inspired residential project in Prague
- PDF / 1,773,434 Bytes
- 21 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 15 Downloads / 202 Views
Deciding where to live: case study of cohousing‑inspired residential project in Prague Marie Horňáková1 · Jana Jíchová1 Received: 9 November 2018 / Accepted: 23 October 2019 © Springer Nature B.V. 2019
Abstract In addition to the still significant suburbanization process, the Prague metropolitan area is also seeing the emergence of reurbanization. While existing studies in this field are mainly concerned with the resulting spatial patterns, the present work focuses on the process of selecting a new place of residence. This topic is of significance because of the importance of reflecting residents’ requirements and ideas in urban planning. The Alfarezidence residential project was inspired by the notion of cohousing and is located in the inner city. The aim of the study was to explore reasons that led participants to choose Alfarezidence, the alternatives they considered and the role Alfarezidence’s specific characteristics played in the decision-making process. A series of deep semi-structured interviews were conducted, and the results show that no participants chose Alfarezidence because of cohousing. Instead, they perceived the common areas, small scale and spatial layout to be desirable aspects; furthermore, accessibility, architectural layout, and character were also key to the decision-making process. Proximity to the workplace was also particularly important in prioritizing Alfarezidence over alternative family housing in the suburbs. Keywords Cohousing · Inner city · Residential mobility · Residential preferences · Prague
1 Introduction In recent years, it has been possible to observe slight changes in residential mobility and residential preferences in Prague, Czechia. In addition to the still significant suburbanization process in the Prague metropolitan area, there is an emergence of reurbanization tendencies (Ouředníček et al. 2015; Haase et al. 2017) and people are also moving to socialist housing estates (Temelová et al. 2011; Šimáček et al. 2015). Existing studies in this field are mainly concerned with the resulting spatial patterns, and the process of selecting a new place of residence has largely been ignored.
* Marie Horňáková [email protected] Jana Jíchová [email protected] 1
Faculty of Science, Charles University, Albertov 6, 128 43 Prague 2, Czech Republic
13
Vol.:(0123456789)
M. Horňáková, J. Jíchová
Here our focus is therefore on the process of selecting a new place of residence. The topic has significance because of the importance of reflecting the requirements and ideas of residents in terms of urban planning. For example, urban planning currently stresses the densification of the city (Dieleman and Wegener 2004; Howley 2009) as a means of development, in preference to the option of spreading outwards in the surrounding landscape. Socialist housing systems continue to produce a strong path dependency even 30 years after the collapse of communism. It was characterized by a unitary tenure structure, whereby state-rental and owner-occupied housing provided
Data Loading...
