Vries, I.W. de (2021) Segregation in the city of Groningen - An explorative study into the developments in housing, income and segregation based on income in the city of Groningen. Master thesis.
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Abstract
In the last decade, more and more attention is being paid to income inequality at global, European and national level. This income inequality has increased in many European countries since the 1970’s. An increasing income inequality means that the gap between the rich and the poor is becoming bigger. One way to study this inequality, is to look at how this inequality expresses itself spatially. In terms of income inequality, this means that different groups, earning different incomes, live in different parts of a geographical area, for example a city. This spatial inequality, which can be called segregation, is generally higher in larger cities. Segregation is affected by the geography and the availability of housing. In this way, changes in the housing stock might lead to more or less segregation. One way to change the existing housing stock is by urban restructuring. This includes the renovations of old housing and the building of new housing. When focusing on The Netherlands, striving for an ‘unsegregated’ or ‘undivided city’ is something that has been anchored in Dutch policy for decades. Already since the 1970s, plans are made to reduce income and ethnic segregation in Dutch cities. Also the municipality of Groningen has been aiming to ‘work against’ segregation for decades. The aim of this research is to explore the developments in housing, income and, in the end, segregation, and to explore to what extent these relate to urban restructuring plans and segregation in the city of Groningen. This is done by using a quantitative research method, in which secondary administrative data is used. The research focuses on segregation between income groups. The households are divided in five different income groups. The results show that there has been a high increase in the housing stock between the years 2000-2019. However, there are large differences between the growth in the districts. On the other hand, the share of social housing per district has become more equal; the social housing is more evenly spread across the districts in the city. When looking at the distribution of the lowest and the highest income group, no substantial differences between the years are found. What does stand out, is that the lowest income group seems to live predominantly in the Northern part of the city, while the highest income groups lives predominantly in the Southern part of the city. The lowest and the highest income group are also the most segregated ones. This is the case for two geographical levels, namely the segregation between districts in the city and within these districts. The segregation within the districts also seems to be the highest in districts where the share of the specific income group is low to average. When comparing the developments of the share in social housing and the share of the lowest income group, a significant positive correlation between the share of social housing in a neighbourhood compared to the share of social housing in a district and the share of the lowest income group compared to the share of the lowest income group in a district is found. This indicates that developments in the share of social housing affect the segregation of the lowest income group within a district.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Master) |
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| Degree programme: | Economic Geography: Regional Competitiveness and Trade (track) |
| Supervisor: | Edzes, A.J.E. |
| Date Deposited: | 08 Mar 2021 13:27 |
| Last Modified: | 08 Mar 2021 13:27 |
| URI: | https://frw.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/3450 |
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