VIRTUAL: Livable Cities – New York

Abstract

Our research questions the way in which the socio-economic status of a neighborhood and its occupants affects the neighborhood residents’ willingness to have densification procedures, in their place of residence and their preferences for particular built forms of densification, that were presented to them. To answer these questions, the research method included conducting a survey in two neighborhoods similar in their physical appearance and built morphology, but very different in their socio-economic condition. One of the case studies is in ‘Ramat Aviv’ neighborhood in north Tel-Aviv and is ranked 16 by the CBS. The other case study is in ‘Yaffo D’ neighborhood in the south of Tel-Aviv which is ranked 8 by the CBS. Tenants from both existing residential clusters designated as case-studies and a non-bias control group consisted of architecture students, participated the survey. All subjects were asked to evaluate different design alternatives to the tripled densification level of the existing built environment of their place of residence. The results of this research shows that ‘Yaffo D’ group, which is the case -study ranked lower in socio-economic ranking by the CBS, ranked more alternatives as improvement of the current situation as opposed to ‘Ramat Aviv’ group (which is ranked higher in socio-economic ranking by the CBS) that didn’t see any alternative as improvement of their current situation. Therefore, it can be concluded that socio-economic background and ranking of the neighborhood has influence on residents’ willingness for urban renewal – densification projects and their preferences in the process. In this research the results showed that residents of lower socio-economic neighborhoods tend to be more positive towards urban renewal projects that include densification. Another interesting finding was the differences in preferences between the groups of residents versus the control groups.