Who moves where—and what housing choices do they make? uncovering spatial polarization through life-course migration in a shrinking megacity

IF 6.6 1区经济学 Q1 URBAN STUDIES

Cities Pub Date : 2025-10-03 DOI:10.1016/j.cities.2025.106508

Qing Wang , Chika Takatori , Kenjiro Kito

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Spatial polarization is a bottom-up process embedded in life-course trajectories rather than arising solely from macro-scale demographic decline. This study examines how life-course migration and housing choices shape spatial polarization in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area (TMA), a prototypical shrinking megacity. Using an integrated framework—combining survivorship-based cohort estimation, robust multiple linear regression, random forests, and geographically weighted regression—this research links micro-level residential decisions to broader demographic and structural transformations.

Results identify three life-course migration cohorts whose divergent housing choices reinforce a polarized geography of youthful cores, family-oriented inner suburbs, and ageing peripheries. Young adults cluster in central Tokyo’s high-density rentals near transit hubs; young families pursue homeownership and educational access in western Tokyo and inner suburbs; while older seniors relocate to eastern Tokyo and peripheral municipalities, shaped by low-cost rentals and rural attachments. Across cohorts, housing tenure emerges as the strongest determinant of Migration Pattern Intensity (MPI), outweighing land prices, neighborhood characteristic, and accessibility.

These findings advance the concept of a “polarized life-course housing trajectory” to explain how housing choices across life stages accumulate into multiscale polarization, intensified by intergenerational transfers. The study introduces this novel lens to bridge macro-structural shrinkage with micro-level residential practices to understand spatial polarization. Policy insights stress integrating foreign labor and multicultural inclusion at the regional scale and promoting multi-generational housing locally to mitigate suburban shrinkage and ageing. These strategies resonate with the SDGs and global sustainability agendas, offering lessons for urban governance in megacities confronting demographic contraction.

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谁会搬到哪里？他们会选择什么样的住房？通过不断缩小的特大城市的生命历程迁移揭示空间极化

空间极化是嵌入在生命历程轨迹中的自下而上的过程，而不仅仅是由宏观人口下降引起的。本研究探讨了东京都市圈（TMA）的生命历程迁移和住房选择如何塑造空间极化，这是一个典型的萎缩大都市。利用综合框架——结合基于生存的队列估计、稳健的多元线性回归、随机森林和地理加权回归——本研究将微观层面的居住决策与更广泛的人口和结构转变联系起来。研究结果确定了三个生命过程中的移民群体，他们不同的住房选择强化了一个两极分化的地理结构：年轻的核心、以家庭为导向的内郊区和老龄化的外围。年轻人聚集在东京市中心靠近交通枢纽的高密度出租房中；年轻家庭在东京西部和近郊追求住房所有权和教育机会；而年长的老年人则搬到东京东部和周边城市，这些城市的租金低，与农村有联系。在整个队列中，住房使用权成为迁移模式强度（MPI）的最强决定因素，超过了土地价格、社区特征和可达性。这些发现提出了“极化生活过程住房轨迹”的概念，以解释不同生活阶段的住房选择如何累积成多尺度极化，并因代际转移而加剧。本研究将这一新颖的视角引入宏观结构收缩与微观住宅实践之间的桥梁，以理解空间极化。政策见解强调在区域范围内整合外国劳动力和多元文化包容，并在当地推广多代住房，以缓解郊区萎缩和老龄化。这些战略与可持续发展目标和全球可持续发展议程一致，为面临人口萎缩的特大城市的城市治理提供了经验教训。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Cities URBAN STUDIES-

CiteScore

11.20

自引率

9.00%

发文量

517

期刊介绍： Cities offers a comprehensive range of articles on all aspects of urban policy. It provides an international and interdisciplinary platform for the exchange of ideas and information between urban planners and policy makers from national and local government, non-government organizations, academia and consultancy. The primary aims of the journal are to analyse and assess past and present urban development and management as a reflection of effective, ineffective and non-existent planning policies; and the promotion of the implementation of appropriate urban policies in both the developed and the developing world.