The effect of location on activities in the dwelling and residential environment

Life in the city differs from that in the suburbs or in rural areas (Reijndorp et al, 1998; Reijndorp, 2004; Heins, 2002; De Wijs-Mulkens, 1999). Different studies describe in detail the spatial, economic and social features of different locations. Aspects like employment, places of entertainment, health care facilities, are used to differentiate locations. Also housing stock features like age, building density and the amount of green space in the residential environment are considered to be important in differentiating locations. All these studies assume that different locations afford different activities. However, not much empirical evidence is available about whether and to what extent people in different locations really perform different activities in their dwelling and residential environment. This paper presents some results from a survey in which a total number of 659 respondents participated, living either in a city centre, suburban or rural location. The aim of this survey is to improve insight into the meaning of dwelling in a rural, suburban and city centre location by studying the activities that people do. This paper is a first step towards this aim. It focuses only on the relation between people and their residential environment by looking into detail which activities people perform in their dwelling and residential environment. It also examines to what extent activities are different between a city centre, suburban and rural location and to what extent these differences can be explained by background variables like age, household composition, income and level of education.