From suburbanization to reurbanization? Changing residential mobility flows of families with young children in the Prague Metropolitan Area

ABSTRACT

Contemporary housing preferences and related behaviour are highly diverse due to the variety of lifestyle cultures in cities, dissimilarities in residents’ resources, and urban changes. In recent years, the Prague Metropolitan Area in Czechia has seen gradual changes in residential mobility patterns. While suburbanization remains the most significant type of residential change, other processes have emerged. The aim of the article is to examine changes in the residential mobility patterns of families with young children living in and moving between different residential zones in the Prague Metropolitan Area. Migration data relating to individuals are used to examine spatial and temporal shifts in mobility flows. Even though suburbs are still the main destination for families with young children, the authors identified a certain degree of diversification in residential behaviour. They conclude that this finding points to the emergence of reurbanization tendencies towards the housing estates and intensifying mobility within residential zones with housing that is similar in appearance.

KEYWORDS:

• families
• Prague Metropolitan Area
• residential mobility
• reurbanization

Acknowledgments

This article was prepared partly with funding provided by the Charles University Grant Agency, under Project No. 1434218, titled ‘Selection of a new place of residence of inhabitants of the Prague Metropolitan Region’, and partly with funding from the Charles University Research Centre, programme UNCE/HUM/018.

Notes

1 The suburbs are delimited as suburban municipalities. Some municipalities are located separately because they are delimited as residential suburbs, whereas other municipalities around them are not delimited as suburbs.