Urban revival: good for the neighbours or the neighbourhood? A comparison of the moving propensities in reviving and non-reviving neighbourhoods in Ghent, Belgium

Due to the disproportionate attention paid to middle class preferences for urban revival, many scientists and grassroots organizations start from the implicit assumption that lower SES inhabitants of reviving neighbourhoods are opposed to the changes their neighbourhoods undergo. However, what scant research there is on this topic supports the opposite conclusion. To test this assumption further, the association between living in a reviving neighbourhood and the desire to move was investigated. Urban revival brings new inhabitants and often, new amenities to the neighbourhood. We assume that these changes are associated with moving propensities related to residential satisfaction and stress, i.e. the fulfilment of residential aspirations and needs, or lack thereof. Logistic multi-level analyses were performed on data from the Livability Monitor conducted by the city council of Ghent, a midsized city in Belgium. The results indicate respondents with lower socioeconomic status who live in reviving neighbourhoods are neither more nor less likely to express moving propensities than their SES peers living in other deprived neighbourhoods are. On the other hand, middle class, i.e. highly educated inhabitants in reviving neighbourhoods express higher moving intentions than their peers living in deprived neighbourhoods do. Both findings with the (implicit) assumptions many scholars have and indicate that the responses to urban revival are much more complex than often accounted for in other research