Staying in place: narratives of middle-income renter immobility in New York City

Abstract

Existing research has enumerated why people move; this article responds to recent calls for increased focus on residential immobility – or staying in place – by focusing on why and how middle-income renters remain immobile as housing costs change around them. This article examines how middle-income renters make sense of housing cost change and their ability to remain in place. Using thirty-two semi-structured interviews with middle-income renters in New York City, this research analyses housing narratives to understand the financial and social complexities of remaining in place. Middle-income renters who are intentionally immobile explain how they stay in their neighbourhood area by making financial trade-offs and negotiating landlord relationships to avoid rent increases. Within a broader narrative of inevitable price displacement, this demonstrates how structural processes of urban housing and urban change manifest in the housing narratives of middle-income renters as they act to defer their own displacement and actively hold their place in changing neighbourhoods.

Keywords:

• Middle income
• residential mobility
• immobility
• neighbourhood change
• rent

Acknowedgements

This research was supported by a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant. I would like to thank the informants who candidly shared their housing experiences. I am grateful to Mei-Po Kwan, Andrew Greenlee, and David Wilson, who each reviewed and discussed this paper in multiple iterations, and for the thoughtful and constructive feedback from three anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 “Middle-income” is defined relative to national or local median income. Author calculations, where possible, adjust income relative to housing size.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under grant number 1757630.

Notes on contributors

Rebecca Marie Shakespeare

Rebecca Marie Shakespeare is a Lecturer in the department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University. Her research currently focuses on individual experience and perceptions of urban space, comparative international housing policy, and critical GIS. She applies GIS and qualitative GIS approaches to understand housing affordability, residential mobility, and gendered experiences of streets.