Mia Wahlström | KTH Royal Institute of Technology (original) (raw)
Papers by Mia Wahlström
Land Use Policy, 2020
Abstract Cities – and, in general, urban agglomerations – have in recent years become foci of soc... more Abstract Cities – and, in general, urban agglomerations – have in recent years become foci of social science research and policy interest. Prominent attention has been given to agglomeration advantages, mobility patterns, urban decay, inequity problems, residents’ quality of life, safety and crime, labour and housing markets, public amenities, and urban planning issues. Less attention however, has been paid to the basic question: what makes the city a ‘real’ and attractive city? This question prompts essentially a research challenge on the ‘raison d’etre’ of cities, in particular on the residential satisfaction and quality-of-life motives of urban inhabitants. The present paper aims to pinpoint attractiveness characteristics of cities based on perceptions of urban quality by residents and their affinity with city life. This paper offers a micro-based (individual) assessment of motives and appreciations of citizens, in terms of their love for the city. A typological distinction will be made between the ‘soul’ of the city (its spirit, history, cultural identity, ambiance, social capital, etc.) and the ‘body’ of the city (its built environment, infrastructure, public amenities, supply of housing, green areas, etc.). The empirical analysis – applied to the four largest cities in Sweden (Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmoe and Umea) – will be undertaken in two steps: (i) an exploratory statistical analysis of the findings from an extensive micro-based survey questionnaire among inhabitants in these four urban agglomerations; (ii) an explanatory evaluation of the individual appreciation scores using a regression approach. Our results show that the ‘City Love Index’ is a useful construct that can be decomposed into ‘soul’ and ‘body’ aspects of the city. Our multivariate regression analysis demonstrates clearly that both factors matter. More detailed results suggest that it is the perceptions regarding the city’s ‘walkability’ and ‘vibrancy’, both part of the ‘soul’ of the city, that have a significant influence on the City Love Index - for all cities studied.
Contemporary cities face many challenges, none the least from an urban planning perspective. Glob... more Contemporary cities face many challenges, none the least from an urban planning perspective. Global climate change and urbanization is putting pressures on planning for combatting and adapting to, ...
There seems to be a growing interest among planners in identifying and reinforcing features that ... more There seems to be a growing interest among planners in identifying and reinforcing features that differentiate their city from others. On a local level, it appears increasingly common that neighbor ...
Proceedings of the 20th Annual European Real Estate Society Conference - Vienna, Austria, 2013
In line with directives from the European Union, member countries have adopted measures aiming to... more In line with directives from the European Union, member countries have adopted measures aiming to reduce the energy use in the real estate sector. In Sweden, sellers of residential housing have to provide potential buyers with an energy certificate with detailed information on energy performance and consumption. The idea is to make users more aware of their energy consumption and of different ways to reduce it. This paper studies to what extent the energy certificates for single-family house owners in Sweden, introduced in 2009, seem to work in the way expected. More specifically, the following questions are addressed: • What role does preferences and household characteristics play for energy consumption as compared with the energy related attributes of their house? • What is the price premium for energy efficient housing in Sweden? Are households willing to increase their bids for a given housing alternative, the lower they anticipate their energy cost will be? An econometric approach is used to address the questions. Energy consumption is related to both housing attributes, including energy-related factors, and household characteristics, including income. A hedonic price model is used to analyze implicit prices for the various attributes. A unique feature is the large set of energy-related attributes included in the database (all single-family houses sold in Sweden 2009-2010), which also comprises individual household data. Preliminary results show that the energy consumption in a house is partly depending on the building's characteristics, such as vintage, and partly on the household's characteristics, such as size and composition. The hedonic model shows that there is a price premium for energy efficient houses.
Public Management Review, 2020
ABSTRACT There is a growing interest among urban planners in identifying and reinforcing key feat... more ABSTRACT There is a growing interest among urban planners in identifying and reinforcing key features that differentiate a city from others. At a local level, neighbourhoods are increasingly positioned and branded, based on their distinguishing characteristics. Against this background this paper aims to contribute to a better governance of cities and urban neighbourhoods by pinpointing the determinants of citizens’ perceptions of urban quality of life. A conceptual model on neighbourhood love, comprising both body and soul constituents, is developed and empirically tested. The results show that the residents’ ‘love’ for their neighbourhood is significantly related to both its material and immaterial amenities.
This paper contributes to existing literature by developing a quantitative method for analyzing t... more This paper contributes to existing literature by developing a quantitative method for analyzing the city soul – a concept here used to study cities’ distinguishing features. The method is based in theory and tested by means of a survey, in which ~2,500 households in Sweden answered questions about their city. Results from e.g. regression analysis indicate significant relationships between the perceived strength of a city’s soul and the residents’ relation to their city as well as their perceptions of its characteristics. Particularly, the city soul seems to be linked to feelings of pride, attachment and belonging and to city characteristics related to art, beauty and stories about the cities.
International Regional Science Review, 2020
Recent years have shown an increasing interest in local factors shaping the happiness or attachme... more Recent years have shown an increasing interest in local factors shaping the happiness or attachment of citizens in regard to their daily living environment, sometimes also coined city love or neighborhood love. This new strand of literature—often framed in the context of the “geography of happiness” or the “economics of happiness”—means an extension of quantitative socio-psychological or socio-economic research on determinants of people’s affection for their living environment, including local quality-of-life, sense of community, place-based social capital, attachment to “urban ambiance,” and so on. The present paper conceptualizes the nature and composition of urban characteristics of place attachment and appreciation (city love) in terms of two constituent factors, viz. city soul (indicators on the perceived intangible attractiveness of the city and its neighborhoods) and city body (indicators reflecting the tangible attractiveness features of the city). This analytical approach w...
Energy and Buildings, May 14, 2015
The Swedish energy performance certificates for single family housing provide rich information on... more The Swedish energy performance certificates for single family housing provide rich information on energy consumption and various physical attributes. They also include estimates of the energy conservation potentials resulting from implementing cost-efficient energy saving measures. By matching the certificates issued for single family houses in 2009 and 2010, with data from other sources we have created a unique database which can be used to explore a wide variety of questions related to energy consumption and conservation. One aim of this paper is to assess the role for energy consumption played by socioeconomic characteristics of the residents as compared to physical attributes of the house. Another is to estimate the influence of housing attributes and climate on the "engineering estimates" of the conservation potentials and analyze to what extent the two estimated relationships are consistent. Our results show that while the quantitative impact of physical attributes dominate the energy use for heating and cooling, the opposite holds for the consumption of household electricity. The assessed conservation potential, amounting to 15 percent of the energy consumption, is significantly related to both the housing attributes and the energy consumption. The results also indicate a need to improve the information provided by the performance certificates.
Land Use Policy, 2020
Abstract Cities – and, in general, urban agglomerations – have in recent years become foci of soc... more Abstract Cities – and, in general, urban agglomerations – have in recent years become foci of social science research and policy interest. Prominent attention has been given to agglomeration advantages, mobility patterns, urban decay, inequity problems, residents’ quality of life, safety and crime, labour and housing markets, public amenities, and urban planning issues. Less attention however, has been paid to the basic question: what makes the city a ‘real’ and attractive city? This question prompts essentially a research challenge on the ‘raison d’etre’ of cities, in particular on the residential satisfaction and quality-of-life motives of urban inhabitants. The present paper aims to pinpoint attractiveness characteristics of cities based on perceptions of urban quality by residents and their affinity with city life. This paper offers a micro-based (individual) assessment of motives and appreciations of citizens, in terms of their love for the city. A typological distinction will be made between the ‘soul’ of the city (its spirit, history, cultural identity, ambiance, social capital, etc.) and the ‘body’ of the city (its built environment, infrastructure, public amenities, supply of housing, green areas, etc.). The empirical analysis – applied to the four largest cities in Sweden (Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmoe and Umea) – will be undertaken in two steps: (i) an exploratory statistical analysis of the findings from an extensive micro-based survey questionnaire among inhabitants in these four urban agglomerations; (ii) an explanatory evaluation of the individual appreciation scores using a regression approach. Our results show that the ‘City Love Index’ is a useful construct that can be decomposed into ‘soul’ and ‘body’ aspects of the city. Our multivariate regression analysis demonstrates clearly that both factors matter. More detailed results suggest that it is the perceptions regarding the city’s ‘walkability’ and ‘vibrancy’, both part of the ‘soul’ of the city, that have a significant influence on the City Love Index - for all cities studied.
Contemporary cities face many challenges, none the least from an urban planning perspective. Glob... more Contemporary cities face many challenges, none the least from an urban planning perspective. Global climate change and urbanization is putting pressures on planning for combatting and adapting to, ...
There seems to be a growing interest among planners in identifying and reinforcing features that ... more There seems to be a growing interest among planners in identifying and reinforcing features that differentiate their city from others. On a local level, it appears increasingly common that neighbor ...
Proceedings of the 20th Annual European Real Estate Society Conference - Vienna, Austria, 2013
In line with directives from the European Union, member countries have adopted measures aiming to... more In line with directives from the European Union, member countries have adopted measures aiming to reduce the energy use in the real estate sector. In Sweden, sellers of residential housing have to provide potential buyers with an energy certificate with detailed information on energy performance and consumption. The idea is to make users more aware of their energy consumption and of different ways to reduce it. This paper studies to what extent the energy certificates for single-family house owners in Sweden, introduced in 2009, seem to work in the way expected. More specifically, the following questions are addressed: • What role does preferences and household characteristics play for energy consumption as compared with the energy related attributes of their house? • What is the price premium for energy efficient housing in Sweden? Are households willing to increase their bids for a given housing alternative, the lower they anticipate their energy cost will be? An econometric approach is used to address the questions. Energy consumption is related to both housing attributes, including energy-related factors, and household characteristics, including income. A hedonic price model is used to analyze implicit prices for the various attributes. A unique feature is the large set of energy-related attributes included in the database (all single-family houses sold in Sweden 2009-2010), which also comprises individual household data. Preliminary results show that the energy consumption in a house is partly depending on the building's characteristics, such as vintage, and partly on the household's characteristics, such as size and composition. The hedonic model shows that there is a price premium for energy efficient houses.
Public Management Review, 2020
ABSTRACT There is a growing interest among urban planners in identifying and reinforcing key feat... more ABSTRACT There is a growing interest among urban planners in identifying and reinforcing key features that differentiate a city from others. At a local level, neighbourhoods are increasingly positioned and branded, based on their distinguishing characteristics. Against this background this paper aims to contribute to a better governance of cities and urban neighbourhoods by pinpointing the determinants of citizens’ perceptions of urban quality of life. A conceptual model on neighbourhood love, comprising both body and soul constituents, is developed and empirically tested. The results show that the residents’ ‘love’ for their neighbourhood is significantly related to both its material and immaterial amenities.
This paper contributes to existing literature by developing a quantitative method for analyzing t... more This paper contributes to existing literature by developing a quantitative method for analyzing the city soul – a concept here used to study cities’ distinguishing features. The method is based in theory and tested by means of a survey, in which ~2,500 households in Sweden answered questions about their city. Results from e.g. regression analysis indicate significant relationships between the perceived strength of a city’s soul and the residents’ relation to their city as well as their perceptions of its characteristics. Particularly, the city soul seems to be linked to feelings of pride, attachment and belonging and to city characteristics related to art, beauty and stories about the cities.
International Regional Science Review, 2020
Recent years have shown an increasing interest in local factors shaping the happiness or attachme... more Recent years have shown an increasing interest in local factors shaping the happiness or attachment of citizens in regard to their daily living environment, sometimes also coined city love or neighborhood love. This new strand of literature—often framed in the context of the “geography of happiness” or the “economics of happiness”—means an extension of quantitative socio-psychological or socio-economic research on determinants of people’s affection for their living environment, including local quality-of-life, sense of community, place-based social capital, attachment to “urban ambiance,” and so on. The present paper conceptualizes the nature and composition of urban characteristics of place attachment and appreciation (city love) in terms of two constituent factors, viz. city soul (indicators on the perceived intangible attractiveness of the city and its neighborhoods) and city body (indicators reflecting the tangible attractiveness features of the city). This analytical approach w...
Energy and Buildings, May 14, 2015
The Swedish energy performance certificates for single family housing provide rich information on... more The Swedish energy performance certificates for single family housing provide rich information on energy consumption and various physical attributes. They also include estimates of the energy conservation potentials resulting from implementing cost-efficient energy saving measures. By matching the certificates issued for single family houses in 2009 and 2010, with data from other sources we have created a unique database which can be used to explore a wide variety of questions related to energy consumption and conservation. One aim of this paper is to assess the role for energy consumption played by socioeconomic characteristics of the residents as compared to physical attributes of the house. Another is to estimate the influence of housing attributes and climate on the "engineering estimates" of the conservation potentials and analyze to what extent the two estimated relationships are consistent. Our results show that while the quantitative impact of physical attributes dominate the energy use for heating and cooling, the opposite holds for the consumption of household electricity. The assessed conservation potential, amounting to 15 percent of the energy consumption, is significantly related to both the housing attributes and the energy consumption. The results also indicate a need to improve the information provided by the performance certificates.