Intra-urban migration and housing submarkets: Theory and evidence

In the 1950s and 1960s a group of housing economists at Columbia University developed a framework for the analyses of urban housing markets which was based around the concept of housing submarkets and household migration. There is now widespread agreement amongst housing economists that submarkets should be adopted as a working hypothesis but the concept has been reformulated in terms of intra-urban relative house price differentials. The accepted test for submarket existence uses a hedonic model of house prices which assumes market equilibrium. This paper returns to an analysis of submarkets which focuses on spatial migration patterns. By examining household intra-urban mobility patterns in the Glasgow housing market it is possible to demonstrate that submarkets tend to be self-contained. The analysis also suggests that the current standard statistical tests may be incomplete and in the case of Glasgow underestimate the number of submarkets. © 2004 Taylor and Francis Ltd.