Finding a place to live in the city: analyzing residential choice in Kampala

ABSTRACT People are constantly moving to and within Kampala, Uganda. When choosing a place to settle, they have to find a balance between several housing preferences and constraints imposed by their socio-economic situation. Moreover, their options might be limited because of the city’s urban fabric: their housing preferences might not be available at their preferred location. This article analyzes the influence of households’ socio-economic situations on residential preferences and how these preferences interact with the existing morphology of the city, based on data from 2,058 surveys in the Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area collected in 2018. Using regression and spatial clustering analysis, results show that certain socio-economic factors such as household composition, education level, and traveling by private car are good predictors of revealed preferences regarding housing attributes. Responding households consider relational location (measured as travel time or distance to work/education) more than distance to the city center. Furthermore, while housing attributes showed clear patterns of spatial clustering, this was much less the case for household attributes. An uneven distribution of housing options together with residential choice constraints do not seem to limit households’ equitable access to Kampala, although more research at a finer geography and over time is recommended to capture the dynamics.