Residential preferences, place alienation, and neighborhood satisfaction: A conjoint survey experiment in Toronto’s inner suburbs

ABSTRACTIn this article, we study neighborhood preferences among residents of highly diverse, lower income suburban neighborhoods in Toronto, Ontario. By extending the typical application of conjoint designs to the urban domain, we show techniques for measuring place alienation—a sense of disconnection from place—and its impact on neighborhood satisfaction. We find that residents in lower SES neighborhoods share many of the same priorities as residents in higher SES neighborhoods when it comes to safety, transit, school quality, neighborliness, public spaces, and building types. However, differences appear across a range of preferences including bike usage, local commercial spaces, and cultural and recreation facilities. When considering place alienation and neighborhood satisfaction, we find a consistent, robust inverted relationship—as place alienation decreases, neighborhood satisfaction increases. Moreover, this relationship is not mitigated by socioeconomic factors, neighborhood conditions, or even attitudinal and experiential factors. We end with suggestions for future research.KEYWORDS: NeighborhoodssatisfactionCanadasuburbanresidential preferences AcknowledgmentsThis study was generously supported by the School of Cities at the University of Toronto and the Wellesley Institute. We would also like to thank the residents of Toronto for their time and insights regarding the study.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. Lovejoy et al. (Citation2010) discusses New Urbanists’ community designs incorporating features of “traditional neighborhoods” referring to communities built in the U.S. before World War II with moderate density, a grid-like street pattern, a mix of residential and commercial land uses, distinct centers, and an orientation to walking and transit rather than private automobiles. In the postwar era, many of these neighborhoods were succeeded with the rise of suburbanization and the reliance on vehicle ownership.2. At the time of our research, there were 140 official neighborhoods. These were defined in the mid-1990s by the city “to help government and community agencies with their local planning by providing socioeconomic data at a meaningful geographic scale” (City of Toronto, n.d.). The methodology for doing so is outlined here: https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/data-research-maps/neighbourhoods-communities/neighbourhood-profiles/about-toronto-neighbourhoods/. The neighborhood boundaries were updated in 2022 to respond to differential population changes, so that now there are 158. While our selection procedures allowed us to select neighborhoods that approximate microcosms of the broader inner suburbs of which they are a part, results might be impacted by the specific boundaries. This is a limitation and future research would benefit from considering a wider sample of areas.3. Comparing response patterns by education, age, and housing type reveals a similarly consistent pattern, with the following small differences: BA holders are somewhat more likely to value public transit and school quality (both BA and non-BA holders strongly value school quality; the effect is somewhat stronger for the former). Relative to younger people (18–33), middle-aged individuals (35–65) were slightly more affected by safety (though both groups were strongly affected by this treatment) while younger people were not substantially affected by housing type. “People helping each other out” was more attractive to older individuals, as was living in a neighborhood with mostly houses (again compared to young people).Additional informationFundingThe work was supported by the UTSC Sociology Summer Scholars Program, the School of Cities, the University of Toronto, and the Wellesley Institute.Notes on contributorsDaniel SilverDan Silver is a professor of sociology at the University of Toronto. He received his PhD from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago.Prentiss DantzlerPrentiss A. Dantzler is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Faculty Advisor to the School of Cities at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on housing policy, neighborhood change, and residential mobility with a particular focus on urban poverty, social welfare policies, race and ethnic relations, and community development. Prentiss received his PhD in Public Affairs with a concentration in Community Development from Rutgers University-Camden. He also holds an MPA from West Chester University and a BS from Penn State University.Kofi HopeKofi Hope is a Rhodes Scholar and has a doctorate in politics from Oxford University. He is the co-founder of Monumental, a Toronto based strategic advisory firm. He writes a monthly opinion column for the Toronto Star newspaper and is an urbanist in residence at the University of Toronto School of Cities, an emeritus Bousfield Scholar with the Geography and Planning department and a senior fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. He serves as a board member for the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and has volunteered widely across Toronto. In 2017, he was winner of the Jane Jacobs Prize and in 2018 a Rising Star in Toronto Life’s Power List. Kofi was the co-founder and former Executive Director of the charity the CEE Centre for Young Black Professionals.